Alleged Heath Street gang member admits he lied on a Covid small-business loan application

A Weymouth man who was rounded up in a February sweep of alleged members of the gang that has long terrorized residents in and around the Mildred Hailey Apartments pleaded guilty this week - not to being a member of a criminal gang but to lying on an application for a Covid-related loan aimed at helping small businesses about whether he was facing any criminal charges at the time, the US Attorney's office reports.

In fact, when he applied for and got a loan of $13,600 in the spring of 2021, Donovan Scarlett, 25, was facing criminal charges in Roxbury Municipal Court for illegal possession of a firearm and ammunition following his arrest on Aug. 2, 2020 on Horan Way in the Mildred Hailey development.

Scarlett is scheduled for trial on those charges in Roxbury court on Monday, according to court records.

In his application for a Paycheck Protection Program loan in the spring of 2021, Scarlett said he had earned $65,280 as a food delivery driver in 2020, according to an affidavit by Department of Labor investigator who worked on the case. In fact, Scarlett never filed a tax return for 2020, the affidavit continues, adding, however, that what got him arrested was answering "No" to a question whether he was "subject to an indictment, criminal information, arraignment, or other means by which formal criminal charges are brought in any jurisdiction, or presently incarcerated, or on probation or parole?"

Scarlett now faces up to 20 years in federal prison at his sentencing on a charge of wire fraud, scheduled for Sept. 15. As part of his plea agreement, prosecutors will ask a federal judge to order him to repay the $13,600 loan he got.

Scarlett was not the only alleged Heath Street associate charged with supplementing his income through bogus Covid-relief loans. Two other alleged members are charged with setting up a cleaning company, called Married 2 the Mop, which got more than $900,000 in federal Covid and small-business loans - and which the feds charged became a front for providing fake jobs to other gang members.