Sun City golf club pays over $600,000 to resolve loan fraud case

PHOENIX — A country club in Sun City has agreed to pay over half a million dollars to resolve accusations that it applied for a loan it wasn’t eligible for, prosecutors announced last week. 

Briarwood Country Club, located near 135th Avenue and Meeker Boulevard, will pay $631,400, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona.

The loan the country club applied for was through the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). Briarwood applied for $431,000 in May 2020.

What did Sun City golf club allegedly do?

The federal loan Briarwood applied for is part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act.

These loans were meant to support small businesses that struggled to stay afloat during the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, they weren’t meant to cover social clubs like Briarwood, according to U.S. Attorney Gary Restaino.

“PPP loans were an important but finite resource to help save small businesses across America during a generational pandemic,” Restaino said in a news release last Wednesday. “Congress did not intend this vital resource to cover ‘social clubs’ like Briarwood.”

The Small Business Administration (SBA) handles the distribution of these loans.

After Briarwood got the money, it received forgiveness — and burdened the SBA with fees to the bank that processed Briarwood’s loans, prosecutors said.

The case was resolved by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona and the SBA’s Office of General Counsel and Office of the Inspector General.