Mauricio Umansky charged with fraudulently obtaining $3.5 million in pandemic relief loans
Mauricio Umansky is being sued for allegedly obtaining more than $3.5 million in fraudulent pandemic relief loans.
According to InTouch, the Realtor LLC claimed in its July 2023 complaint that Umansky, 54, and his business partner, William “Billy” Rose, applied for and received two Payroll Protection Program (PPP) and CARES Act loans totaling $3,521,153 through their luxury real estate firm, The Agency.
These programs were created during the COVID-19 pandemic to help prevent employee layoffs by providing loans to businesses that were unable to pay their workers.
Realtor LLC alleged in its filing that the agency — which was recently featured on the canceled Netflix reality show “Buying Beverly Hills” — was one of several “large, profitable” companies that obtained pandemic loans by misrepresenting their financial situations, claiming their businesses were eligible when they were not, or … misrepresenting how the funds would be used.
The suit alleged that Umansky and Rose “falsely certified that ‘this loan request is necessary to support the agency’s ongoing operations due to the current economic uncertainty.’”
“Moreover, the amount they applied for and received exceeded the loan limit of 2.5 monthly salaries with a cap of $100,000 annual salary per employee,” the complaint claims. It further states that the men “later applied for and received full loan forgiveness, despite knowing they were already ineligible for loans.”
The filing argues that the impact on the agency’s profits “would be minimal, if any, because their revenue was based on a percentage of real estate transactions that typically occur between millionaires and billionaires, not consumers who were unable to purchase goods or dine out due to COVID-19 restrictions.”
In fact, the lawsuit claims, the firm’s “business grew massively” during the pandemic, as its sales volume rose from $6 billion in 2019 to $6.5 billion in 2020 and “increased to $11.2 billion in 2021.”
Realtor LLC argued in its complaint that the allegedly fraudulently obtained loans “only boosted defendants’ profits.”
A representative for the agency denied the allegations in the lawsuit, telling Page Six, “The claims in this case do not reflect the reality of our operations and financial condition when we applied for our PPP loan, and we intend to vigorously defend against these unfounded claims.”
The representative added that “the agency has always operated with the highest level of integrity in all aspects of our business” and stressed that the company “faced significant challenges, including layoffs and reductions during the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Representatives for Umansky — the estranged husband of “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” star Kyle Richards — did not immediately respond to Page Six’s requests for comment.
