Arkansas Man Gets 16 Years in Prison for $16M Scheme to Defraud Pandemic Loan Programs

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A federal judge has sentenced an Arkansas man to more than 16 years in prison for a scheme to fraudulently obtain more than $16 million from pandemic-era loan programs, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Washington announced.

U.S. District Judge Thomas O. Rice sentenced Tyler Keith Andrews, 39, of Russellville, to 196 months in federal prison. Andrews was also sentenced to three years of supervised release, ordered to pay restitution of $16.33 million to the U.S. Small Business Administration and ordered to forfeit $4.3 million.

Andrews has also used the surname Penix. Authorities previously said he resided in Bentonville.

Andrews pleaded guilty in September 2023 to preparing and submitting dozens of fraudulent applications for the Paycheck Protection Program and the Economic Injury Disaster Loan program. Authorities said he prepared fraudulent applications for two purported businesses owned by co-defendant Yuriy Anishchenko of Spokane, Washington.

Anishchenko referred Andrews to more than a dozen other potential “clients,” for which Andrews prepared and submitted additional loan applications using false information and fraudulent documents.

The scheme took place between June 2020 and May 2022, authorities said. Andrews charged his co-conspirators a fee, usually 10% of the loan amount, to be paid after receipt of the funding.

Andrews also submitted numerous false and fraudulent loan applications on behalf of his own businesses, including Andrews Associates Inc., Texas Oil and Gas Express Inc., and Total Logistic Solutions. In the applications, Andrews misrepresented active status, payroll, number of employees, revenue, and other information in order to obtain funds, authorities said.

Andrews was released after his initial arrest, pending a trial, then arrested again and indicted by a grand jury in Arkansas for passport fraud and aggravated identity theft. In that case, Andrews allegedly tried to fraudulently obtain a passport in an apparent attempt to flee the U.S.

The loan fraud case was investigated by the Eastern District of Washington’s COVID-19 Fraud Strike Force, the FBI, the U.S. Small Business Administration and the U.S. Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.

Andrews is among thousands of fraudsters who plundered the government’s pandemic loan programs. An Associated Press analysis in 2023 found that more than $280 billion in COVID-19 relief funding had potentially been stolen.