A federal jury has convicted Oscar Hills, IV, 53, of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on charges of wire fraud and engaging in unlawful monetary transactions. The announcement was made by Acting United States Attorney Ellison C. Travis. The conviction followed a three-day trial before U.S. District Court Judge Brian A. Jackson, with the jury unanimously finding Hills guilty on two counts of wire fraud and two counts of unlawful monetary transactions. Hills has been residing in Honolulu, Hawaii since 2021.
According to evidence presented at trial, between March and May 2020, Hills submitted several fraudulent loan applications under pandemic relief programs established by Congress through the CARES Act. One application was for a business named Bootstate Financial Group under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). In this application, Hills claimed that Bootstate had 40 employees and an average monthly payroll exceeding $270,000—statements found to be false. Based on these claims, a lender approved the PPP loan and deposited $675,272 into an account controlled by Hills. Shortly after receiving these funds, Hills used $75,500 to purchase a Dodge Viper.
Another fraudulent application was submitted for a non-profit organization called Baton Rouge Teen Summit under the Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program. In this instance, Hills falsely represented that the organization had 25 employees and over $184,000 in annual operating expenses. The Small Business Administration relied on these statements to approve the loan and transferred $159,900 into an account owned by Hills. He later used $23,272 from these funds to pay eleven years of overdue property taxes on his home.
The case also revealed that this is not Hills’s first conviction for wire fraud in the Middle District of Louisiana. On April 26, 2010, he pleaded guilty to four counts of wire fraud related to defrauding State Farm as well as Ascension Credit Union and Eagle Louisiana Federal Credit Union; he was sentenced in March 2011 to serve 33 months in prison and ordered to pay more than $89,000 in restitution.
Following his latest conviction, Hills faces up to thirty years imprisonment per count of wire fraud along with fines up to $1 million per count and supervised release terms; each money laundering count carries up to ten years imprisonment with fines up to $250,000 plus supervised release.
The investigation was conducted by the United States Secret Service and prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Kristen L. Craig and John B. Casey.
"Anyone with information about allegations of pandemic fraud can report it by calling the Justice Department’s National Center for Disaster Fraud (NCDF) Hotline at 866-720-5721 or via the NCDF Web Complaint Form at www.justice.gov/disaster-fraud/ncdf-disaster-complaint-form," according to officials.
