Henderson man charged with using PPP funds to buy a house

A Henderson man has been arrested and is facing charges that he obtained $500,000 in federal COVID-19 relief funds fraudulently and laundered the money to purchase a home, according to federal prosecutors.

Brandon Casutt, 49, of Henderson, was arrested Friday and made an initial appearance Tuesday afternoon before U.S. Magistrate Judge Elayna J. Youchah in Las Vegas, according to a release by the U.S. Department of Justice.

Casutt allegedly received a Paycheck Protection Program loan for approximately $350,000 for a business called Sky DeSign and approximately $150,000 in Economic Injury Disaster Loan money for a charity called Skyler’s C.F. Foundation, according to prosecutors.

Casutt laundered PPP money by writing checks to 23 people, friends and family, associates and himself, each in the amount of $8,300 with “back pay” and “pandemic pay” in the checks’ memo lines, according to the criminal complaint.

Prosecutors allege that Casutt would then divert the funds to a bank account in the name of Skyler’s C.F. Foundation — a charity Casutt is president of and that is supposedly devoted to raising awareness about cystic fibrosis — and used the money, along with the EIDL funds, to purchase a $400,000 home in Henderson.

Federal investigators checked with the Nevada Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation after Casutt stated in his application that the charity employed 32 people. No records of unemployment insurance payments were made to the state, according to prosecutors.

Nevada law requires that employers who pay more than $225 in payroll in any quarter must pay UI with the state.

Sky DeSign, prosecutors say, also didn’t have any employees.

“The fact that every single supposed employee of Sky DeSign — a supposed print screening company in Las Vegas — has an annual salary of at least $100,000, as evidenced by the $8,330 checks, is simply not believable,” according to the charging document.

Checks were made out to Casutt’s wife, parents and teenage child.

Casutt, who lost in the 2018 Democratic primary to represent District 12 in the Assembly, and his family moved at the end of June 2020, according to the complaint.

The CARES Act is a federal law enacted March 29 that provided up to $349 billion in forgivable loans to small businesses through the PPP.

Contact Jonathan Ng at jng@reviewjournal.com. Follow @ByJonathanNg on Twitter.