Lehigh Valley Man Sentenced to Over Six Years in Prison for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance Fraud and Defrauding Local Car Dealerships

PHILADELPHIA - United States Attorney David Metcalf announced that Justin Heimbach, 34, of Bath, Pennsylvania, was sentenced today to 76 months in prison, three years of supervised release, and $598,257 in restitution by United States District Judge John M. Younge for schemes to defraud the federal government and multiple local car dealerships.

The defendant was charged by indictment in August 2024 and pleaded guilty in February of this year to six counts of mail fraud and four counts of wire fraud.

In March of 2020, Congress passed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act), which created the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program (PUA). The PUA program provided unemployment benefits to individuals not eligible for regular unemployment compensation, or extended unemployment benefits.

As detailed in court filings and admitted to by the defendant, Heimbach, who operated a construction company called TeamKJ Construction, engaged in a scheme that caused fraudulent PUA applications to be filed in the names of individuals allegedly no longer employed by TeamKJ as a result of COVID-19.

In reality, the applications contained a number of materially false statements, including that the applicant had lost their job with TeamKJ as a result of COVID-19 and the date the applicant lost their job with TeamKJ due to the pandemic.

In addition, Heimbach defrauded multiple Lehigh Valley car dealerships by purchasing vehicles in the names of other construction companies registered to or associated with him, and writing checks for those vehicles on bank accounts that had an insufficient balance to cover the transaction.

This case was jointly investigated by the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry, the U.S. Department of Labor Office of Inspector General, and FBI Philadelphia's Allentown Resident Agency and prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney S. Chandler Harris.

On April 7, the Department of Justice announced the creation of the National Fraud Enforcement Division (Fraud Division). The Fraud Division is laser-focused on investigating and prosecuting those who commit fraud against the American people. The Department's work to combat fraud supports President Trump's Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, a whole-of-government effort chaired by Vice President J.D. Vance to eliminate fraud, waste, and abuse within Federal benefit programs.