A San Jose father of six who scammed the federal government out of $3.6 million in fraudulent COVID-relief business loans — and blamed his “bad decisions” in part on a pandemic-related hit to his six rental properties — received a five-year prison sentence and was ordered to give up a pricey Tesla and pay back $1.7 million.
Lebnitz Tran, also known as Viet Tran, must surrender himself for imprisonment by Jan. 10, according to the sentence from Judge William Orrick in U.S. District Court in San Francisco.
Over a four-month period early in the pandemic, Tran “created shell companies, lied on application forms, created fake IRS tax forms, and