“Love & Hip Hop Atlanta” star, businessman and rapper Mo Fayne will serve more than 17 years in federal prison for conspiracy and wire fraud and related charges involving a fraudulent Paycheck Protection Program loan application.
U.S. District Judge Mark H. Cohen sentenced Maurice Fayne, also known as Arkansas Mo, to 210 months and five years of supervised release. He’ll also have to pay back nearly $4.5 million to his victims. Fayne, whose real name is Maurice Fayne, has been in jail since December 2020 since he was accused of violating the terms of his bail by contacting a possible witness.
Karlie Redd’s ex-husband pleaded guilty to the charges on May 11. His other charges included bank fraud and making false statements to a financial institution involving a loan application for the Paycheck Protection Program, or PPP.
“Fayne planned to use the PPP program as a cover for his long-running Ponzi scheme. The funds the program supplies serve as a lifeline to many businesses desperately trying to stay afloat during the pandemic, and unfortunately his fraud helped deplete those precious dollars,” acting U.S. Attorney Kurt R. Erskine stated in a news release on Sept. 15.
According to Erskine, Fayne ran a multistate Ponzi scheme that defrauded more than 20 people who invested in his trucking business from March 2013 through May 2020. Instead of using investors’ money to operate the business, he used the funds to pay personal debts and expenses and to fund an extravagant lifestyle.
During the scheme, Fayne spent more than $5 million at a casino in Oklahoma, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia said. In April 2020, Fayne submitted a $3.7 million loan application to United Community Bank, falsely claiming that his trucking business had 107 employees and an average monthly payroll of $1.4 million.
Instead of using the funds to pay workers and keep his business afloat, prosecutors said Fayne used the loan to cover expenses including $40K in past-due child support. He also used the money to pay $50K for restitution owed in a previous fraud case, $85K for custom-made jewelry, $136K to lease a Rolls-Royce and $907K to start a new business in Arkansas. He was facing a 30-year sentence.
