Ex-CEO of Birmingham IT company charged with allegedly defrauding customers, COVID loan scheme

The former CEO of a Birmingham IT company has been charged in federal court with bank fraud, money laundering and bankruptcy fraud, prosecutors announced Friday.

Thomas Aaron Cain, 44, former owner and CEO of Keep Information Technology Simple, LLC, and later Keepitsimple.us, was indicted in federal court in Birmingham on 19 counts: 12 counts of fraud related to a scheme to defraud customers ; five counts of fraud related to the Payroll Protection Program (PPP) fraud scheme; one item on money laundering; and one item on bankruptcy.

Between at least July 2017 and December 2021, Kane used his customer’s credit cards, which were registered to pay monthly service fees and authorized expenses, to make unauthorized payments, according to the indictment at the time.

When confronted by his clients, Kane made up excuses, such as claiming there was an accounting error or creating false invoices to send to clients, according to billing documents.

According to Prim Escalona, ​​U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, and U.S. Special Agent in Charge Patrick Davis, Kane also allegedly participated in a scheme to receive unauthorized funds from the U.S. Small Business Administration’s COVID-19 PPA. arraignment on Friday.

The former CEO of a tech company allegedly made false statements to obtain three PPP loans totaling more than $625,000.

According to the indictment, he attempted to obtain two more PPP loans in the name of his second business, Keepitsimple.us., totaling more than $450,000. Kane allegedly made false statements in support of the two applications and submitted false tax documents to try to get the applications approved.

The money-laundering fraud charges stem from allegations that Kane used $150,000 in PPP funds to pay back a previous victim of a charge-off scheme.

Kane allegedly committed bankruptcy fraud by withdrawing more than $20,000 in cashier’s checks from the Keepitsimple.us bank account and transferring the funds to a personal bank account, even though the money belonged to the company’s bankruptcy estate and was disallowed funds . use.

If convicted, the former CEO faces up to 20 years in prison on the mail fraud charges, up to 10 years on the money laundering charges and a maximum of five years on the bankruptcy fraud charges.