Jury Convicts Portland’s Beniamin Lucescu in SBA Pandemic-Relief Wire-Fraud Case

ANALYSIS · September 11, 2026 (USAO-OR announcement / “guilty today” wire dateline) Slug: portland-pandemic-relief-funds-conviction

Primary sources

• Assigned primary (USAO District of Oregon): Portland Man Found Guilty of Stealing Pandemic Relief Funds — live justice.gov page blocked this pass by an Akamai interstitial; full HTML not retrieved. Wayback CDX lists a 200 snapshot at 20260912015516 (Sept. 12, 2026, 01:55 UTC); archive body timed out / empty this pass.
• USAO dateline (distributor, not the PR body): PUBT listing — “United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Oregon 09/11/2026 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 09/11/2026 18:46”; “published this content on September 11, 2026 … Distributed … September 12, 2026 at 00:46 UTC.” PUBT did not host the article text (“The text of this article is not available at the moment”).
• Nearest full-text reprint of the USAO release: Right Now Oregon, Sept. 11, 2026 — local rewrite using USAO facts and the Bradford quote. Treat as wire reprint of the USAO release, not an independent investigation. Title on this outlet differs (“Convicted in Nearly $500,000 Pandemic Relief Fraud Scheme”).
• Title-matched teaser: Spot On Oregon — exact USAO headline; opening clause “A federal jury found Beniamin Lucescu, age 57, a Portland resident, guilty today of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering…”; full story pointed to Gorge Country Media (full Gorge page not retrieved this pass).

Court record (findable; verdict PDF not retrieved)

• Docket: United States v. Lucescu, No. 3:24-cr-00235-AB, U.S. District Court, District of Oregon (Portland Division). Filed June 11, 2024. Assigned Judge Amy M. Baggio. CourtListener/RECAP docket hubs: 70365428 / 68937341 (HTML pages 403 this pass; API/search metadata used).
• Original indictment (ECF 1, June 11, 2024): sealed/redacted indictment as to Beniamin Lucian Lucescu (1) — Count 1: wire fraud (forfeiture allegation). Unredacted indictment ECF 2 under seal.
• Superseding indictment (ECF 31): entered September 17, 2025 as to Beniamin Lucescu and Georgeta Lucescu (matches USAO date).
• Government trial memorandum (ECF 94, July 31, 2026, RECAP PDF retrieved): gov.uscourts.ord.180322.94.0_1.pdf — charging statutes and EIDL theory as the United States expected to prove; not a verdict.
• Defense trial memorandum (ECF 87, July 31, 2026, RECAP PDF retrieved): gov.uscourts.ord.180322.87.0.pdf — defense framing of the charged theory; not a finding.
• Trial minutes (RECAP docket text, PDFs not retrieved):
• ECF 138 (Sept. 8, 2026): Jury Trial Day 1; jury seated and sworn; continued to Sept. 9.
• ECF 141 (Sept. 9, 2026): Day 2; witnesses Alfonso Olivas, Kevin Darling; continued to Sept. 10, 9:00 a.m., Courtroom 14B.
• ECF 142 (Sept. 10, 2026): Day 3; witnesses Kevin Darling, Colleen Anderson, David Bucholz, Amber Andersen; plaintiff rests; defendant rests; continued to Sept. 11, 2026, 9:00 a.m.
• ECF 143 (Sept. 10, 2026): Rule 29 motions for judgment of acquittal on all counts denied; “all counts will be decided by the jury.”
• ECF 149 (entry date 2026-09-13): Jury Verdict — Redacted (Public) — PDF not available in RECAP this pass; count-by-count boxes unread.
• ECF 150: Jury Verdict — Unredacted (Non-Public).
• Undocketed-number entry, entry date 2026-09-13: Jury Trial Completed.
• Prior, separate criminal case (not this verdict): United States v. Lucescu, No. 3:09-cr-00247, D. Or., filed June 24, 2009, terminated Aug. 1, 2011 (CourtListener). Government trial memo states Aug. 1, 2011 sentence of 1 day on each of five counts concurrent, 5 years supervised release, restitution $365,059.93. 2010 jury conviction for bank fraud and wire fraud is also in contemporaneous press (Oregonian, Dec. 3, 2010; Oregon RealEstateRama, Dec. 6, 2010). Do not fold the 2009–11 mortgage case into this pandemic-relief verdict.

Business-registry corroboration (existence only)

• Oregon SOS business listings for ROSE CITY SENIOR CARE LLC, registry #39499496, registered Dec. 8, 2006; registered agent Georgeta Lucescu; 2739 SE Franklin St, Portland, OR 97202 (OpenGovUS; OpenCorpData). Corroborates that a real Oregon LLC existed; not proof of the charged fraud.

Core Tension

USAO headline “stealing pandemic relief funds” / “false information about their business” / round “nearly $500,000” vs the charged theory in the parties’ trial memos and the government’s bill of particulars: promissory fraud on post-approval EIDL use certifications (personal federal tax debt + cryptocurrency), not a fake-company or PPP-eligibility case — plus a jury conviction on named offense categories with sentence not yet imposed, a wife still untried, and a count-by-count verdict form that has not been read.

What the record shows

What was announced (USAO, via reprints + PUBT dateline)

A federal jury in Portland found Beniamin Lucescu, 57, a Portland resident, guilty of:

1. conspiracy to commit wire fraud,
2. wire fraud,
3. conspiracy to commit money laundering, and
4. money laundering.

That is a trial verdict, not a plea. The USAO title and Spot On/Gorge teaser use “Found Guilty” / “guilty today.” PUBT dates the USAO release September 11, 2026. Right Now Oregon’s reprint is dated September 11, 2026.

Do not treat September 11 as PACER-confirmed to the exclusion of the docket. Trial minutes show evidence closed September 10 and trial continued to September 11, 9:00 a.m. RECAP lists the Jury Verdict (ECF 149) and “Jury Trial Completed” with entry date September 13, 2026. The written verdict PDF was not retrieved. Use Sept. 11 as the USAO announcement / “guilty today” date; flag Sept. 13 as the docketed verdict-document date.

What the USAO attributes to court documents / trial evidence (still USAO framing)

Per the Right Now Oregon reprint of the USAO release:

• Lucescu and his wife, Georgeta Lucescu, “conspired between April 2020 and May 2022 to obtain pandemic relief funds from the U.S. Small Business Administration by providing false information about their business, Rose City Senior Care.”
• “Prosecutors said” he repeatedly claimed on applications that funds would be used only to address economic losses the business suffered because of COVID-19, but “intended to use the money for personal expenses and investments.”
• After receiving “nearly $500,000” in pandemic relief funds, he used “almost all of the money to pay off an old personal federal tax debt and invest in cryptocurrency, according to the evidence presented at trial.”

The reprint does not name PPP or EIDL. It does not list statutes, count numbers, a restitution figure, or a prison term.

Indictment / charging structure (court filings — charged, not the same as the unread verdict form)

Government trial memorandum (ECF 94) describes the superseding indictment as:

USAO: eight-count superseding indictment September 17, 2025, charging both Beniamin and Georgeta with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit money laundering; Beniamin additionally charged with money laundering.

The public verdict form (ECF 149) was not read this pass. The USAO statement supports guilt on the four offense categories. It does not, by itself, prove the jury checked guilty on every one of the eight counts. Do not invent a count-by-count scorecard.

Rule 29 (ECF 143, Sept. 10): after both sides rested, the court denied judgments of acquittal on all counts; “all counts will be decided by the jury.” That is a sufficiency-to-reach-the-jury ruling, not a conviction.

Program defrauded

• USAO PR (reprint): “pandemic relief funds from the U.S. Small Business Administration.” PPP/EIDL not named.
• Both trial memos: the charged instruments are Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) applications / Loan Authorization and Agreements — an initial EIDL plus two modifications. Government: CARES Act expanded EIDL. Defense: “the government is not alleging any fraud related to the Lucescus’ application for the loan, or general eligibility to receive the loan itself. The sole allegation of fraud is related to language contained in the closing documents they signed after the loan was approved.”
• PPP: a defense filing (ECF 139, Sept. 9, 2026) is a memorandum supporting a motion in limine to admit evidence of PPP loans (ECF 121). That is a trial-evidence dispute, not a basis to describe this as a PPP-conviction case.

Publish line: charged program on the court papers is EIDL. USAO public line is generic “pandemic relief” / SBA. Do not label this a PPP conviction.

Amounts

• USAO: “nearly $500,000”; “almost all” used for old personal federal tax debt and cryptocurrency.
• Government trial memo (pre-trial allegation): “$487,000.” Component figures stated in the same memo: first disbursement “$56,500”; EIDL Mod. #1 “$143,400”; EIDL Mod. #2 “$287,800.” Those three figures sum to $487,700, not $487,000. Do not reconcile the $700; flag it. None of these figures is a restitution judgment.
• No fine, forfeiture order amount, or loss figure appears in the USAO reprint.

Sentencing status

• Not sentenced. USAO reprint: Beniamin Lucescu “is scheduled to be sentenced on December 14 before a U.S. District Judge.” That clause omits the year. The same reprint sets Georgeta’s trial for February 8, 2027, which makes December 14, 2026 the only year that fits the sequence — inferential, not a docket minute retrieved here. Judge not named in the PR; docket judge is Amy M. Baggio.
• Georgeta Lucescu: “scheduled to stand trial on February 8, 2027.” “She remains charged by indictment, which is an accusation of a crime. She is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.” Not convicted in this announcement.

Who worked the case (USAO reprint)

• Announced by U.S. Attorney Scott E. Bradford, District of Oregon.
• Investigated by SBA Office of Inspector General, with assistance from the FBI.
• Prosecutors: AUSA Meredith Bateman and SAUSA Ethan Bodell (both appear as government counsel on the trial minutes).
• Defense trial counsel on the minutes: John Robb and Morgan Dethman.

USAO quote (framing, not a jury finding)

Bradford (as reprinted): “The pandemic was a time of unprecedented hardship, when Americans needed their government’s help most. Beniamin Lucescu chose to exploit that crisis for his own gain. His fraud stole critical taxpayer-funded resources from Americans who were counting on them. We will not tolerate those who abuse government relief programs for personal profit.”

Charged theory vs USAO “false information about their business”

Keep these layers separate:

Defense memo also argues SBA SOP 50 39 9 listed “Payment of any part of a direct Federal debt … except IRS obligations” among EIDL-proceed restrictions in a way the defense says permitted IRS payments. That is a defense legal argument that went to the jury; the conviction means the jury did not acquit. Do not write the SOP excerpt as a holding of this case.

Claims check (table)

How coverage splits

No ideological split located this pass. What exists is USAO-wire reproduction, not a Left/Right fight over the verdict.

• USAO / administration-enforcement frame: Bradford quote — exploiting hardship, stealing taxpayer resources, will not tolerate abuse of relief programs. Headline verb is “stealing.”
• Right Now Oregon (Sept. 11, 2026): near-complete USAO rewrite; slightly different headline that leads with “nearly $500,000.” Not independent reporting on the defense theory.
• Spot On Oregon / Gorge Country Media teaser: exact USAO title; “guilty today”; full Gorge article not retrieved.
• National / Oregon metro desks: no AP, Oregonian/OregonLive 2026, KGW, KATU, KOIN, or OPB story on this verdict located this pass (2010 Oregonian coverage is the prior mortgage case).
• Court papers vs press: the split that matters for /analysis is not partisan. It is USAO “stealing / false information about their business / nearly $500k” against EIDL promissory-fraud charging papers, unsentenced status, untried spouse, and an unread count-by-count verdict form.

Coverage split note: If none of the above desks publish, keep the card as a USAO-primary conviction brief and do not invent a culture-war frame.

Publish-ready ANALYSIS package draft · Storm Scout · 2026-09-13 · for /analysis/portland-pandemic-relief-funds-conviction