https://chicago.suntimes.com/2023/1/7/23542370/ppp-payroll-protection-plan-fraud-investigation-iris-martinez-cook-county-clerk-courts-covid-loans
COVID relief fraud probe includes over
50 employees in Cook County Clerk of Court
Iris Martinez’s office
Chicago Sun-Times, by Frank Main
Posted By: AltaD, 1/8/2023 6:50:57 PM
More than 50 employees of Cook County Clerk of Court Iris Martinez are suspected of defrauding a federal program intended to help small businesses struggling during the COVID-19 pandemic, a spokesman said Friday. The clerk’s inspector general is working with Cook County’s inspector general’s office, which is conducting a separate investigation of employees who work for Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle (Snip) Most of the court clerk’s employees who are under investigation had gotten PPP loans of about $20,000 by saying they had made at least $100,000 from an outside business in the year before they filed their applications, Murphy-Aguilú said. Some employees received about $40,000 in loans, he said.