Fake Marin Lawyer Gets 1 ½ Years: Report

MARIN COUNTY, CA — A woman who falsely claimed to be a lawyer and scammed a U.S. government program out of more than $300,000 in coronavirus relief aid was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison.

Miranda Devlin pleaded guilty on July 21 to charges related to making false statements in a loan application for federal government pandemic relief funds and for mail fraud involving the stealing of California attorneys’ identities and practicing law, the U.S. Justice Department announced Wednesday in a news release.

She was also ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $565,355.

The 37-year-old San Francisco woman pretended to be a lawyer in Marin County Superior Court, The Marin Independent Journal reports.

Devlin, who also goes by “Miranda M.” and “Miranda P.” according to the Justice Department, confessed to multiple crimes from March 2012 through May 2020 in which she defraud individual victims and the government, the Justice Department said.

In one of her schemes, Devlin – who has never been an attorney – admitted she stole the identities of two female attorneys licensed by the State Bar of California and deceived her victims into believing she was a licensed attorney, according to the Justice Department.

In 2012 she started to assume attorneys’ names and used their license numbers and even paid one attorney’s State Bar dues, without knowledge of the attorney, to keep the attorney’s license active, the Justice Department said.

Devlin further admitted to submitting change of address requests to the U.S. Postal Service in order to have other people’s mail forwarded to her, including one attorney’s State Bar license card, according to the Justice Department.

Devlin admitted she represented multiple individuals in the courtrooms of Bay Area
county Superior Courts.

Devlin admitted scheming to defraud the federal government’s pandemic relief program of $368,800, the Justice Department said.

To commit one fraud, Devlin submitted a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) borrower application form requesting money from the United States Small Business Administration (SBA) program, according to the Justice Department.

The PPP arose out of the CARES Act passed by Congress in March 2020 that authorized forgivable PPP loans to small businesses, to promote job retention and cover specified business expenses during the pandemic, the Justice Department said.

Devlin’s PPP application contained several deliberately false statements that Devlin certified as true, according to the Justice Department. Her statements included that she had a business named Common Nucleus of Cancer (CNC) and that it had 2019 payroll expenses and also had paid taxes in 2019. CNC was, however, only a shell company.

In her plea agreement, Devlin admitted that CNC had no employees and no business expenses.

Devlin admitted that with her PPP loan application she submitted false tax forms and records for 2019 as evidence of the salaries and business expenses she purportedly paid. As a result of that application, Devlin received a PPP loan of $32,700. Devlin admitted that she did not pay any purported business expenses or salaries with that money but rather used it for her own personal benefit.

Devlin further admitted that she continued the scheme and applied for and eventually received a larger, additional loan in the amount of $336,100 from the SBA. In all, Devlin admitted that she unlawfully received a total of $368,800 from the SBA in government pandemic relief loans.

Devlin has been in custody since March 2. Her sentence immediately.

Read more in The Marin Independent Journal