Jurors convict Eden Prairie man of fraudulently receiving more than $1.6M in COVID relief funds

Federal jurors have convicted an Eden Prairie man of fraudulently receiving more than $1.6 million in COVID-19 relief funds.

Harold Bennie Kaeding, 75, was found guilty in U.S. District Court in St. Paul last week of three counts each of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft, and one count of money laundering.

Jurors came back on Friday, the trial’s 10th day, with their verdicts. A family member said that Kaeding remains in federal custody ahead of sentencing, which has yet to be scheduled.

According to prosecutors:

Between March and May 2020, Kaeding applied for nearly $2.2 million in loans through the Paycheck Protection and the Economic Injury Disaster Loan programs. He used the names of his own close family members to submit the loan applications in the names of six different purported corporate entities.

But these entities filed no tax returns and did not report the payment of wages to a single employee for calendar years 2019 and 2020. Kaeding instead fabricated tax documents, manufactured bank statements and submitted other records to ensure the applications appeared legitimate.

These false statements to lenders included the number of employees a given entity employed, the amount of average monthly payroll expenses, and false statements about the intended use of the loan proceeds.

Kaeding initially received more than $1.6 million in ill-gotten proceeds before some banks detected irregularities and reclaimed some of the money.

This left Kaeding with $660,000 that he transferred to bank accounts he controlled that were often opened in the names of the family members.

Kaeding used the money to spare his home from impending foreclosure, buy an SUV and stockpile more than $80,000 in cash.

In early 2021, Kaeding fled alone to Colombia, his wife’s native country, in an apparent attempt to evade prosecution. Law enforcement eventually found him there in November 2021 and had him deported back to the United States to face prosecution.