Josh Bellamy, the former jets receiver who seems to be great with making news headlines has taken the game too far this time.
Bellamy, throughout his career, has played extensively for special teams during the lone season right before he was released from the Jets. He has also spent around five seasons, working with the Bears. Bellamy is a popular NFL player. But this time has made news, not the right reasons.
He has been charged for his participation involving a $24 million COVID-19 relief fraud scheme.
Bellamy was able to acquire around $1.2 million in funds through this scheme by his illegal means. He applied for the funds through a loan program aimed at helping small businesses who aren’t able to cope up in the events of the coronavirus pandemic. This NFS player took advantage of the same and successfully accomplished the fraud involving a huge sum of money.
As per the reports, he has been charged for wire fraud, bank fraud along with the conspiracy for committing these crimes. Pertaining which, Bellamy was arrested on Thursday morning. The arrest was carried by the Southern District of Florida.
According to the sources, Bellamy was already taken off from the Reserve/PUP list of Jets on Wednesday. It was just the day before his arrest. However, the Jets comment clears that they were completely unaware of his goals and the involvement in the scheme when releasing him from the list.
Bellamy applied for a Small Business Administration Paycheck Protection Program Loan to protect Drip Entertainment LLC, his company during the Coronavirus pandemic. But the funds weren’t used for the right reasons. Rather, Bellamy spent those funds on hotels, jewelry and casino withdrawals.
The sources say that Bellamy used over $100,000 of the loan funds on luxury brands including Gucci, Dior, and jewelry stores. He spent over $360,000 at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Florida.
The charges clarify that Bellamy wasn’t planning to stop here. He also tried to get more loan approvals under the same relief plan for his family members in order to accomplish a bigger fraud scheme. He already had planned 90 fraudulent applications as well as 10 more people to apply for these loans.
Bellamy has already appeared before the U.S. Magistrate court on Thursday afternoon right after his arrest in the Middle District of Florida.