Kishore Kethineni of Dublin pleaded guilty to the charges in February, admitting he conspired with his two brothers to engage in a scheme in which they fraudulently obtained over $3.1 million in loans under the Paycheck Protection Program , the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California said in a statement.
The program provides forgivable loans through third-party lenders to small businesses for payroll and other expenses as part of a COVID-19 pandemic relief program by the Small Business Administration. The CEO also admitted to intentionally failing to account for and pay over employment taxes that his company, Neelinfo Incorporated, had withheld from the salaries of its employees, incurring an employment tax liability of over $2 million from 2014 through 2018, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.