A Kissimmee man has been sentenced to nearly two years in federal prison after executing a mortgage fraud scheme to pay back the money he stole in a previous $1.2 million COVID-19 relief scam.
On Monday, Senior U.S. District Judge John Antoon II sentenced 40-year-old Levelle Joseph Harris to 21 months’ imprisonment for wire fraud. As part of his sentence, Harris is required to forfeit $640,911.85 to the United States, which represents the total proceeds obtained from his scheme.
Harris originally pleaded guilty to the wire fraud charge in July 2025.
According to court records, Harris’s legal troubles began in 2020 when he fraudulently obtained more than $1.2 million by applying for 14 Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans under the CARES Act. Instead of using the funds for business expenses like payroll or utilities, he spent it on personal expenses and used a portion of the money to purchase a home.
In January 2023, Harris was federally prosecuted and sentenced to 27 months in prison for that initial scheme.
When the government sought the forfeiture of the residential property bought with the stolen relief funds, Harris claimed he had sold the property and turned the proceeds over to the United States.
However, investigators later determined that the sale of the residential property was “unlawful.” Between February 2022 and January 2023, Harris devised a separate scheme to evade paying his criminal forfeiture, using “false representations” to secure a mortgage.
Harris then used the fraudulently obtained proceeds from the mortgage to purchase the residence and pay off his original court-ordered debt.
Through this secondary mortgage fraud scheme, Harris illicitly obtained an additional $640,911.85.
This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Hannah Nowalk Watson.