JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 A former Jacksonville pastor has been indicted on four counts of wire fraud for allegedly directing fraudulent Paycheck Protection Program loans, federal authorities said.<\/p>\n
Marcus Eichelberger, 46, was accused in an indictment of directing another person between March 2021 and February 2022 to complete and submit applications for Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans from the Small Business Administration (SBA) that they were not entitled to receive, the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office said. The indictment says the applications certified the proceeds would be used to maintain payroll and pay expenses for a purported business.<\/p>\n
After the loans were approved, prosecutors allege Eichelberger and the other person retained the proceeds for personal use rather than any legitimate PPP purpose and later fraudulently applied for forgiveness, causing about $50,000 in loss.<\/p>\n
If convicted, Eichelberger faces up to 20 years in federal prison on each count, authorities said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office is committed to prosecuting those who use fraud and deception to exploit our nation\u2019s federal benefits programs,\u201d U.S. Attorney Gregory W. Kehoe said in a statement. \u201cWe will continue working with our law enforcement partners to protect the integrity of these taxpayer-funded programs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Special Agent in Charge David Spilker of the VA Office of Inspector General\u2019s Southeast Field Office said the investigation \u2014 conducted with the SBA Office of Inspector General \u2014 found that a VA employee and the employee\u2019s pastor fraudulently obtained federal relief funds intended for legitimate businesses. \u201cThis case demonstrates the VA OIG\u2019s unwavering commitment to detecting and preventing fraud,\u201d Spilker said.<\/p>\n
The charges are allegations and the defendant is presumed innocent unless proven guilty in court.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 A former Jacksonville pastor has been indicted on four counts of wire fraud for allegedly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":234469,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[104655,116,118,117,2159],"class_list":["post-234468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-fraudd","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-money"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234468\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}