BOSTON — A Framingham woman will serve federal prison time and has been ordered to pay back more than $460,000 in restitution after she was convicted of fraudulently obtaining hundreds of thousands of dollars in COVID-19 relief money.
U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani sentenced Vanessa Nixon, 45, last Friday to five months in federal prison, followed by three years of supervised release. Talwani also ordered Nixon to pay $468,832 in restitution or forfeiture.
Nixon, who pleaded guilty to bank fraud in March, faced as much as 20 years in prison. But as part of a plea agreement, prosecutors agreed to seek a lesser sentence.
Earlier:Framingham woman who took fraudulent COVID-19 loans to be sentenced in June
Nixon owns several businesses, including Nixon Homes in Framingham and Alpha Auto Body in Hudson. Authorities said that between August 2020 and November 2022, Nixon submitted several fraudulent loan applications in the name of her businesses through the Economic Injury Disaster Loan program and the Paycheck Protection Program. They say she exaggerated how much money she normally earned in business income to make it appear she was incurring greater losses during the pandemic.
Authorities said Nixon then created fraudulent tax documents that she used to try to prove how much she paid in income tax, inflating those numbers significantly. Based on the fake numbers and documents she provided, she was granted $468,000 in loans, which were later forgiven.
Nixon was charged after an investigation by the COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force, which was created in 2021.
Norman Miller can be reached at 508-626-3823 or nmiller@wickedlocal.com. For up-to-date public safety news, follow him on X @Norman_MillerMW or on Facebook at facebook.com/NormanMillerCrime.
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