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Laura Schwartz is a counsel in Crowell & Moring's Los Angeles office, where she is a member of the Commercial Litigation and White Collar & Regulatory Enforcement groups. Laura represents corporate and individual clients in high stakes litigation including healthcare fraud, intellectual property and trade secrets theft, data privacy, and related criminal investigations in state and federal courts. Her clients include Fortune 500 companies, multinational health care services and investment bank and financial services companies, university systems, and technology start-ups.

Federal authorities continue to prioritize and aggressively pursue individuals across the country who seek to exploit coronavirus relief programs meant to aid small businesses and their employees. Over the past week, Muge Ma of New York and Samuel Yates of Texas were arrested, each for submitting multiple fraudulent applications for COVID-19 relief through the Paycheck

The Justice Department filed the first of likely many criminal charges related to the coronavirus stimulus Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), the $660 billion taxpayer fund to provide largely forgivable loans to small businesses suffering under the strain of the pandemic.

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