Mauricio Umansky sued for $3.5 million over alleged fraudulent pandemic loans

Umansky and his business partner allegedly secured two Payroll Protection Program (PPP) and CARES Act loans.

Mauricio Umansky is facing a lawsuit for allegedly acquiring over $3.5 million in fraudulent pandemic relief loans.

According to InTouch, Realtor LLC filed a complaint in July 2023 accusing Umansky, 54, and his business partner, William “Billy” Rose, of securing two Payroll Protection Program (PPP) and CARES Act loans totaling $3,521,153 through their luxury real estate firm, The Agency.

The PPP and CARES Act were established during the COVID-19 pandemic to support businesses in retaining employees by offering loans to those struggling to pay their staff.

Realtor LLC's lawsuit claims that The Agency — featured on the recently canceled Netflix reality series “Buying Beverly Hills” — was one of many “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 lawsuit asserts that Umansky and Rose “falsely certified that ‘current economic uncertainty makes this loan request necessary to support the ongoing operations'” of The Agency.

The complaint further alleged that the amounts they applied for and received surpassed the loan limit of 2.5 times the monthly salary, with a cap of $100,000 annual salary per employee. It also claimed that the men “later applied for and received full loan forgiveness, knowing they were ineligible for the loans in the first place.”

The filing contended that The Agency’s earnings “would have been minimally impacted, if at all, because their revenue was based on a percentage of real estate transactions, typically between millionaires and billionaires, not consumers who were unable to buy goods or dine out because of the COVID-19 restrictions.”