Jay Weaver
Miami Herald (TNS)
For more than 20 years, Carolyn and Tracy Wade worked as deputies in the Broward County Sheriff’s Office.
The couple also ran a funeral business on the side.
When the COVID-19 virus hit in 2020, they submitted applications for tens of thousands of dollars in emergency loans to the federal government, which was helping small businesses like the Wade Funeral Home in Hallandale Beach survive the pandemic.
But the Wades, like dozens of other BSO deputies, got caught lying on their Paycheck Protection Program applications and were convicted of committing fraud at a federal trial in October.
Despite noting the couple violated the public’s trust and that the husband lied on the witness stand, a federal judge on Wednesday gave the Wades strikingly lenient sentences: three years of probation for Carolyn, including 90 days of home confinement, and 90 days of prison time for Tracy. Both must repay $41,666 in ill-gotten loan proceeds guaranteed by the Small Business Administration under the PPP program — a fine that has already been repaid by the couple.
U.S. District Judge Donald Graham said he evaluated about 20 PPP loan fraud cases in a scandal involving Broward Sheriff’s Office deputies — including two who received sentences of four months and seven months — before reaching his decision on the Wades’ punishment.
Graham also said he was struck by the “relative culpability” of a cooperating loan preparer who handled the Wades’ illicit PPP applications and those of about 20 others unrelated to the BSO scandal. The judge pointed out that the preparer was responsible for more than $200,000 in fraudulent PPP loans, yet she received a probationary sentence with no prison time by another federal judge.
“I don’t think [the preparer] was any less culpable than anyone in this case,” Graham said.
By that measure, the Wades caught a big break in the FBI-led investigation.
In court papers, prosecutors said Tracy Wade, 52, who worked as a BSO deputy from 1997 to 2022 and then as a police officer in Pembroke Park, has owned and operated Wade Funeral Home since 2011.
“There is an overarching theme in this case — a breach of trust,” Assistant U.S. Attorney David Snider said in court on Wednesday, recommending 14 months in prison for Tracy Wade. “These two defendants violated this trust while they were sworn law enforcement officers.”
Snider said that Carolyn Wade, 50, who served as a BSO deputy from 2002 to 2023, was “like her husband,” but he recommended that the wife receive 10 months in prison, saying that she did not testify falsely like her husband at two trials in Miami federal court last year. The first trial ended with a hung jury and the second with the couple’s convictions on a wire-fraud conspiracy and related charges.
The Wades’ defense attorney, Larry Handfield, argued it would be “unfair” to imprison the couple for what he admitted was “wrong” behavior in light of the fact that the loan preparer who helped them file the fraudulent PPP loan applications received a probationary sentence.
The Wades, who had worked in the agency’s detention department, are among about 20 former BSO deputies and correctional officers who have either been convicted at trial or pleaded guilty to the pandemic era’s most virulent crime: PPP loan fraud.
According to trial evidence, the Wades were working as detention deputies in 2021 when they posed as sole business owners and collaborated with a Broward loan preparer, Haydee Rivero, to submit two fabricated PPP applications for about $21,000 each. The couple paid Rivero $2,000 to falsify IRS tax forms and income information on the two applications.
The Wades not only submitted fake IRS income tax forms to back up their false applications. After they received the proceeds, the couple then lied that they used the government funds for payroll so that the Small Business Administration would forgive their loans. But in reality, the couple spent the SBA loans on themselves, according to trial evidence.
Before the couple’s trial, Rivero, the loan preparer who assisted the couple and others in filing false PPP applications, pleaded guilty in September to defrauding the government and making false statements to the SBA. Because of her cooperation as a witness, she received a sentence of three years’ probation in January but was ordered to repay $62,499 to the federal government by U.S. District Judge Rodney Smith in Fort Lauderdale.
The Small Business Administration, working with financial institutions around the country, was in charge of the nearly $800 billion PPP loan program approved by Congress as part of the CARES Act in 2020. The agency guaranteed all PPP loans and forgave the vast majority after confirming that they were used for legitimate business expenses, according to SBA records.
READ MORE: Lambos. Jewels. How ‘easy money’ from Uncle Sam made Miami a feast for PPP fraudsters
Other Broward deputy cases
The Wades’ trial in October followed that of another Broward Sheriff’s Office deputy who had served on the agency’s SWAT team. In August, Alexandra Acosta, 38, was sentenced to four months in prison after a Miami federal jury found her guilty of defrauding the SBA’s pandemic program of tens of thousands of dollars.
Alexandra Acosta, a 10-year BSO veteran, was also ordered to pay a $4,000 fine by U.S. District Judge Robert Scola.
Federal prosecutor Trevor Jones described Acosta as a police officer with a “good career” who cared for her family, but also said she deserved to be punished for stealing from the relief program and betraying the public’s trust.
“Acosta has lied multiple times before, during, and after her crime—including while under oath at trial,” Jones wrote in a sentencing memo recommending that she be imprisoned for 10 months.
Acosta, of Tamarac, was convicted of using a real estate company with help from a tax preparer to obtain a $20,180 loan from the federal Paycheck Protection Program in 2021. Prosecutors said she falsified income, tax and other records to qualify for the loan.
Acosta’s co-defendant, Vilsaint St. Louis, the tax preparer, pleaded guilty to a single conspiracy charge in May. He was given a one-year probationary sentence in addition to 100 hours of community service by Scola at the recommendation of his defense attorney and federal prosecutors.
The only other BSO employee convicted of PPP loan fraud to be sent to prison: Stephanie D. Smith. The former BSO deputy school resource officer was found guilty a year ago of wire fraud charges for submitting falsified loan applications for two companies through the pandemic program. She collected tens of thousands of dollars that she spent on herself.
READ MORE: First Broward deputy sent to prison for COVID loan fraud that put $31,000 in her pocket
In May, U.S. District Judge James Cohn gave the 28-year BSO veteran a sentence of seven months and ordered her to surrender to prison and repay $31,108 to the federal government. Cohn also imposed a $2,000 fine.
A problem adds up in one agency
While Smith and Acosta faced trials in Miami, many of their BSO colleagues pleaded guilty to stealing tens of thousands of dollars from the federally funded loan program. The total amount of lost loan money — about $500,000 — was relatively modest compared to dozens of other COVID-19 relief fraud cases in South Florida. But the number of law enforcement officers charged with breaking the law in one police agency stood out as shocking, authorities said.
Among them: Former BSO Lt. Ernest Bernard Gonder Jr. admitted in Miami federal court that he fleeced more than $167,000 from the Paycheck Protection Program — much more than the other BSO employees who were arrested in October 2023 on charges of stealing tens of thousands of dollars each from the same program.
Gonder, who lives in Port St. Lucie, submitted a PPP loan application in 2021 on behalf of EBG Properties LLC, in which he fabricated information about the company’s monthly payroll, number of employees, and taxes, according to charges filed by prosecutor Marc Anton.
Gonder, who formerly worked in the BSO Department of Detention for more than 20 years, pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud in March. U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams gave Gonder a sentence of one-year house arrest along with five years of probation. He was also ordered to pay back the government.
Gonder’s brother, Kamalis Brevard Gonder, who also worked as a BSO deputy in the detention department, pleaded guilty in June to a wire fraud charge stemming from a $20,833 loan that he obtained through the Paycheck Protection Program in 2021.
In August, U.S. District Judge Raag Singhal sentenced Gonder to two years’ probation and ordered him to pay back the money to the government.
At a news conference in October 2023 announcing the PPP scandal in his department, BSO Sheriff Gregory Tony called the deputies’ crime “theft from the American people.”
©2025 Miami Herald. Visit miamiherald.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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