A former Virginia delegate who made headlines in July of 2019 when he interrupted President Donald Trump’s speech is in trouble for fraudulently obtaining a mountain of COVID-19 relief funds that were meant to help business owners stay afloat during the Chinese coronavirus pandemic.
The ex-official accused in the fraud case was identified as 34-year-old Ibraheem Samirah (D-VA), WRIC reported Wednesday. Now, he is facing three years of probation and must pay almost $89,000 in restitution, per his sentencing on October 30.
Video footage shows the moment he had stood up during Trump’s speech to the Virginia General Assembly brandishing a sign that read, “Go Back to Your Corrupted Home,” and “Deport Hate”:
The president was commemorating the 400th anniversary of a representative legislative body meeting in the United States when Samirah decided to create a disruption.
“Earlier this year, Samirah won a special election to represent a northern Virginia district, which includes areas in Loudon and Fairfax counties. The lawmaker said in a statement that he believes his constituents would prefer he protest, rather than ‘passively accept’ President Trump’s inclusion in the historic event,” Breitbart News reported.
WRIC noted money for the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans were meant for specific business-related expenses.
The report continued:
According to court records, Samirah devised and participated in “a scheme to defraud Sonabank and the SBA [Small Business Association],” through which he obtained money and property from them through fraudulent means. This included materially false pretenses and representations about NHS, as well as fake IRS tax and payroll documents.
In May 2020, then-delegate Samirah applied for a loan on behalf of a business titled Nova Healthy Smile (NHS), which was addressed to Samirah’s residential address at the time.
The Democrat was given a green light for the PPP loan of $83,000 from Sonabank, and he also submitted a Borrower Application Form in which he said he was the primary contact and “falsely” said the NHS had four workers.
Samirah also claimed their monthly payroll was over $33,000.
Court papers said he “falsely represented that NHS paid four employees’ payroll in January 2020 and February 2020, when in truth and fact, NHS did not run payroll journals for those periods until May 2020,” per the WRIC report.
Samirah is not the only one involved in fraud and waste when it comes to the COVID-19 relief funds.
In 2023, cumulative estimates from the inspectors general of the Labor Department, Treasury Department, and Small Business Administration (SBA) found that approximately $276 billion designated as “COVID-19 relief funding” was lost through “fraud” and “waste,” per Breitbart News.
A pastor in Maryland was sentenced to prison for over $3.5 million in COVID-19 relief fraud, the outlet reported in September 2024.
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