Florida man bought Lamborghini with COVID-19 business relief funds

Even Quark is shocked…well, not that shocked.

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Wait, the airlines used Covid relief to buy back stock?

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I have received 10k so far from Coronavirus unemployment relief, and I bought a new laptop…but look, dude…it’s also a business expense that is directly related to my work.
How in the world can you justify a brand-new Lamborghini for business purposes?

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Another strong case for how a Universal Basic Income can help one live his or her best life.

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Sorry, no way cops are going to let a sweet ride like that go as long as “Civil Asset Forfeiture” is around.

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Had this Florida Man not purchased the Lambo, the dealer might have had to lay off the detail guy who prepped the car for delivery. So: 1 job saved!

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WP has a more detailed account https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/28/florida-ppp-coronavirus-lamborghini

The bank that issued the loans needs to be investigated. Dude has a 200K cash flow and is applying for 13 mil in ppp loans. So they pay out 3 mil, wtf

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Don’t bet on it. He is small and blatant enough to be a good scape goat to make it look like authorities are taking abuse of funds seriously. Rule number one is ‘don’t get caught’.

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So we took a PPP loan. There are just two of us on the payroll. We were worried that our business was what you might call a “lagging indicator,” and that we would fall on hard times. The PPP loan seemed like a sort of insurance policy against revenue shortfalls. The application process involved submitting a spreadsheet to our lender. That’s it. To date, we haven’t needed the money. Now we are convinced the money is cursed, but we can’t get rid of it. It’s just sitting in our account. There seems to be no mechanism to repay it, at least through our lender. But I feel certain that we will suffer for having it.

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How in the world can you justify a brand-new Lamborghini for business purposes?

Maybe if you own an exotic car rental business (they exist, and appear to make money)?

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It’s ok because rich.

Sentence him to one year locked in the Lamborghini.

Doublespeak!

Yes, they certainly do!
Many exotic car rental places in Miami. We see these - ahem - gentlemen driving rented Lambos, Maseratis, Ferraris, Alphas, down the US1 Overseas Hwy to Key West, driving like the entitled assholes they are.
Even had a group of “Lambo: First Blood” types block the bridge into the Keys for a group photo! That got MCSO and FSP’s attention! When their little “selfie” hit social media, the lot of them were ID’ed and cited.
Thank you, Sheriff Rick!

Now, BMW owners (note: not renters) in S. Florida are a different breed of dog altogether. But they seem to be self-important real estate types who drive like the 1 belongs to them and you are in their way.

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This was from two years ago.

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Not that rich. He was claiming $4M in monthly operating expenses when he had like $200k tops.

I wish I’d thought of that. I’d be an instant millionaire without doing any work.

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Maybe so, but reporting states that he does not.

Credit to @MrHarley above.

Now, federal prosecutors say Hines illegally used hundreds of thousands of dollars in PPP loans meant for his moving companies to buy the car as well as a host of personal expenses, including shopping sprees and high-end hotel stays, instead of covering his companies’ payroll. The Justice Department announced Monday he was arrested and charged with making false statements to a lending institution, bank fraud and engaging in transactions in unlawful proceeds, officials said.

“Collectively, Hines falsely claimed his companies paid millions of dollars in payroll in the first quarter of 2020,” Bryan Masmela, a U.S. Postal inspector, said in an affidavit. “State and bank records, however, show little to no payroll expense during this period.”

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When the ridiculously wealthy people’s “need to make big bucks in case of bad times” rationale flies out the window at the speed of sound.

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Same gentleman, though. And he managed to get involved in a hit-and-run with his new toy, which is how he came to the attention of the authorities.

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So, how many moving boxes can you fit into a Lamborghini anyway? Would it hold a refrigerator? /s

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