4 plead guilty to PPP fraud.

• Position: Lori Hammond, Catherine Needham, Jontrell Wright, Christopher Conrad, Paycheck Protection Program

Four people pleaded guilty on Tuesday to obtaining nearly $5 million in fraudulent loans through the federal Paycheck Protection Program,according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of South Carolina.

They are Lori Hammond, 53, of Summerville; Catherine "Cassie" Needham, 36, of Manning; Jontrell Wright, 35, of Holly Hill; and Christopher Conrad, 39, of Holly Hill.

According to the release, the four fraudulently obtained $4,721,638.50 in PPP loan funds.

The Payment Protection Program is one of the programs put in place in 2020 by the federal government to help businesses who were struggling because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Evidence showed that from in or around June 2020 through around January 2021, Hammond caused multiple materially fraudulent PPP loan applications to be submitted to federally insured financial institutions on behalf of herself and her co-conspirators. She used the identity of a deceased individual in the applications, misrepresented the number of employees and payroll expenses of the entities seeking the loans, attached fraudulent tax documents and made numerous other false and misleading statements, according to the news release.

As part of the conspiracy, the release said Hammond assisted Needham, Conrad and Wright by filling out the loan application documents with materially false and fraudulent information and then submitting them to an individual in California, who would in turn submit the fraudulent loan applications to financial institutions in exchange for a fee. Based on the false information on the applications, the approved PPP lenders funded the loans.

After the funds...