govinfo:USCOURTS-ilsd-3_24-cr-30153-5

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 
FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS 
 
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 
 
Plaintiff, 
 
vs. 
 
DANA C. HOWARD, RICHARD 
SCOTT MYERS, and GLENN 
SUNQUIST, 
 
Defendants. 
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MEMORANDUM AND ORDER 
 
 This matter is before the Court on Defe ndant Richard Scott Myers’ Motion to 
Dismiss Counts Related to PPP Loan Applications and Forgiveness 1 Based on the Due 
Process Clause and the Rule of Lenity. (Doc. 84). The United States has filed a 
memorandum in opposition. (Doc. 93). The Court heard oral argument from the parties 
on May 14, 2026. For the reasons that follow, the motion is DENIED. 
I. BACKGROUND 
 On November 20, 2024, Dana C. Howard, Glenn Sunquist, and Myers were named 
as co-defendants in a 13-count indictment. According to the indictment, Howard and 
Myers were co-owners of Zoie LLC (“Zoie”) and Zade Trucking (“Zade”). Sunquist was 
an employee hired to handle bookkeeping for the businesses. 
The indictment alleges that, beginning in approximately April 2020, Howard and 
Myers conspired to defraud the United States and the Small Business Administration. 
 
1 Counts 1 through 5 of the Indictment. Page ID
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They allegedly obtained a Paycheck Protection Program (“PPP”) loan of approximately 
$1.426 million through false representations and then misused and diverted the loan 
proceeds. Specifically, Howard and Myers are accused of participating in a scheme to 
fraudulently secure and misuse the PPP funds and to conceal their use of those proceeds 
through various financial transactions and bankruptcy filings. The defendants allegedly 
prepared and executed the PPP loan application and related certifications, received the 
funds into accounts controlled by their companies, converted the proceeds into cashier’s 
checks and other transfers, and later submitted requests for loan forgiveness while hiding 
how the money had actually been used. The indictment further claims that both Howard 
and Myers initiated bankruptcy proceedings while still in possession of PPP-derived 
funds and made false statements in those proceedings concerning their assets and 
bankruptcy status. 
Counts 1 through 5 arise from conduct relating to a PPP loan occurring between 
April 2020 and October 2022. During that period, the United States Small Business 
Administration (SBA), the agency responsible for administering the PPP loan program, 
revised its guidance on PPP loan compliance twenty-four separate times. Defendant 
notes that this was “in addition to the CARES Act and the CFR provisions implementing 
temporary rules, interim final rules, and final rules.” (Doc. 84, pg. 2). According to 
Defendant, the resulting regulatory uncertainty requires dismissal of Counts 1 through 5 
pursuant to the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment and the rule of lenity. 
The Government counters, noting that De fendant is not charged with violating 
PPP regulations. Rather, Defendant is charged with federal fraud and false-statement Page ID
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offenses, including conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, making false statements, 
and engaging in monetary transactions involving criminally derived funds. The 
Government maintains that these statutes prohibit schemes to obtain money through 
intentional deception and knowingly false representations. The Government argues that, 
because the application of these statutes does not depend on the clarity of the PPP 
program’s guidance, the motion should be denied. 
II. DISCUSSION 
The Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause requires criminal statutes to provide 
fair warning of the cond uct they prohibit. In United States v. Lanier , the Supreme Court 
identified three related manifestations of this requirement: 
First, the vagueness doctrine bars enforcement of a statute which either 
forbids or requires the doing of an act in terms so vague that men of 
common intelligence must necessarily guess at its meaning and differ as to 
its application.” Second, ... the canon of strict construction of criminal 
statutes, or rule or lenity, ensures fair warning by so resolving ambiguity in 
a criminal statute as to apply it only to conduct covered. Third, ... due 
process bars courts from applying a novel construction of a criminal statute 
to conduct that neither the statute nor any prior judicial decision has fairly 
disclosed to be within its scope. 
 
United States v. Lanier , 520 U.S. 259, 266, 117 S.Ct. 1219, 137 L.Ed.2d 432 (1997) (citations 
omitted); see also United States v. Balint , 201 F.3d 928, 934 (7th Cir. 2000) . In all three 
contexts, the central question is “whether the statute, either standing alone or as 
construed, made it reasonably clear at the relevant time that the defendant's conduct was 
criminal.” Lanier, 520 U.S. at 267, 117 S.Ct. 1219. Page ID
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Because Defendant’s challenge is not premised on the First Amendment, it is an 
as-applied challenge, not a facial one. United States v. Calimlim, 538 F.3d 706, 710–11 (7th 
Cir. 2008). The Court further notes that a scienter requirement in a statute significantly 
alleviates vagueness concerns. McFadden v. United States, 135 S. Ct. 2298, 2307 (2015). The 
presence of a scienter element makes a defendant’s vagueness burden “very difficult to 
carry.” Calimlim, 538 at 711; see also United States v. Cherry, 938 F.2d 748, 754 (7th Cir. 1991) 
(proof of intent and knowledge does “much to destroy any force in the argument that 
application of the statute wo uld be so unfair that it mu st be held invalid.”) (internal 
quotations omitted). 
Counts 1-3 charge conspiracy to commit wire fraud and wire fraud in violation of 
18 U.S.C. §§ 1349 and 1343. These offenses require (1) participation in a scheme to 
defraud, (2) intent to defraud, and (3) use of interstate wires in furtherance of the fraud. 
United States v. Sheneman , 682 F.3d 623, 628–29 (7th Cir. 2012) ; 18 U.S.C. §§ 1349 , 1343. 
Count 4 charges making materially false statements in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1001(a)(2), 
which requires proof that (1) the defendant ma de a statement or representation; (2) that 
the statement or representation was false; (3) the defendant did so knowingly and 
willfully; (4) that the statement was material; and (5) that the statement was made in a 
matter within the jurisdiction of the federal government. United States v. Castro, 704 F.3d 
125, 139 (3d Cir. 2013) . Count 5 charges money-laundering violation under 18 U.S.C. § 
1957, which requires proof of “the unlawful acti vity that generated ‘proceeds’ and then 
the monetary transaction conducted with the criminal proceeds.” United States v. 
Kelerchian, 937 F.3d 895, 908 (7th Cir. 2019). Page ID
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Because each of the charged statutes requires proof of knowing falsehoods or 
intentional deception in connection with ob taining or using money or property, 
Defendant’s vagueness burden is “very difficult to carry.” Calimlim, 538 F.3d 706, 711 (7th 
Cir. 2008). The conduct alleged in the indictment, submitting false information to obtain 
PPP loan funds and misappropriating those funds,2 falls within the plain language of 18 
U.S.C. §§ 1343 , 1349, 1001(a)(2), and 1957. Defendant’s argument that regulatory 
uncertainty in SBA guidance or CARES Act implementing ru les renders these 
prosecutions unconstitutionally vague is therefore unpersuasive. Defendant is not 
charged with violating any SBA regulation or provision of the CARES Act. He is charged 
with violating federal criminal statutes that unambiguously prohibit schemes to obtain 
money through material false statements and the knowing use of criminally derived 
proceeds. Any ambiguity in collateral program guidance does not inject vagueness into 
these criminal prohibitions or deprive Defend ant of fair notice th at lying to obtain 
government funds is illegal. 
A criminal statute is unconstitutionally vague only if it “fails to give ordinary 
people fair notice of the conduct it punishes, or so standardless that it invites arbitrary 
enforcement.” Johnson v. United States, 576 U.S. 591, 595, 135 S. Ct. 2551, 2556, 192 L. Ed. 
2d 569 (2015) . The statutes charged here contain no such defect. Likewise, the rule of 
 
2 The Indictment alleges that Defendants made material false statements on their PPP loan applications and 
certifications by representing that the funds would be used “for payroll” and “to retain workers and 
maintain payroll or make mortgage interest, lease, and utility payments,” when they instead used the 
proceeds for personal enrichment, including writing checks to them selves, obtaining cashier’s checks, 
transferring funds to others, and purchasing a residential home. It does not charge Defendants with 
violating PPP program rules in and of itself. Page ID
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lenity applies only when, after exhausting t raditional tools of statutory construction, 
there remains a “grievous ambiguity” in the criminal statute itself. See, e.g., United States 
v. Pace , 48 F.4th 741 (7th Cir. 2022) . No such grievous ambiguity exists in the subject 
statutes. 
Numerous district courts, considering similar arguments, have reached the same 
conclusion. See e.g., United States v. Mansouri , No. 1:22-CR-00034-LJV-MJR, 2023 WL 
9100641, at *4 n.1 (W.D.N.Y. June 29, 2023) , report and recommendation adopted, 2023 
WL 8430239 (W.D.N.Y. Dec. 5, 2023) (rejecting the defendant’s “attempt to blur the lines 
between SBA rules about PPP loans and the elements of a fraud offense.”); United States 
v. Crowther, No. 2:20-CR-114-JES-MRM, 2021 WL 2583554, at *2 (M.D. Fla. June 23, 2021), 
aff’d, No. 21-12255, 2023 WL 3813509 (11th Cir. June 5, 2023) (denying motion for post-
verdict relief, explaining that the defendant “was not charged with violating the CARES 
Act,” that the charged offenses related “to defendant’s misrepresentations to secure a 
loan, and then the use of the loan proceeds for various monetary transactions,” and that 
his reliance on CARES Act ambiguity was “misplaced.”); United States v. Borgheriu No. 
4:22-CR-06040-MKD, 2023 WL 8634784, at *3–5 (E.D. Wash. Dec. 13, 2023) (rejecting a 
vagueness challenge premised on an SBA regulation because the defendant “is not under 
Indictment for alleged violations of [the regulation]” but was instead charged under 
unambiguous criminal statutes prohibiting wire fraud and false claims); United States v. 
Kjar, No. 4:24CR331 HEA, 2024 WL 5088850 (E.D. Mo. Dec. 12, 2024) (denying motion to 
dismiss a false-statement charge under 18 U.S.C. § 1014 arising from a PPP loan, holding 
that the indictment properly charged the elements of § 1014, not any CARES Act Page ID
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violation, and rejecting vagueness and lenity arguments that improperly looked beyond 
the charging statute to collateral PPP rules). 
Similarly, in United States v. Schampers, No. 22-CR-31, 2023 WL 1098445 (E.D. Wis. 
Jan. 30, 2023) , the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin 
rejected efforts to conflate SBA program rules with the elements of wire fraud. The court 
prohibited the government from arguing th at the defendant’s purchase of residential 
property was a per se prohibited use of PPP loan proceeds, emphasizing that the 
defendant was “charged with Wire Fraud, not violation of the PPP.” The court explained 
that the issue at trial would be whether the de fendant, with intent to defraud, “falsely 
claimed that he intended to spend the lo an proceeds on payroll, lease and mortgage 
expenses, interest, and utilities,” and whether any such representation, if false, was 
material.” Id. at *4. 
Here, as in Schampers, the question is whether the defendant acted fraudulently, 
not whether he violated interim rules governing the PPP. Further, to the extent that 
Defendant’s argument pertains to factua l disputes about his knowledge or 
understanding of SBA guidance, those disputes go to his intent and are questions for the 
jury, not a basis for dismissal. Morissette v. United States , 342 U.S. 246, 274 
(1952) (“Where intent of the accused is an ingredient of the crime charged, its existence is 
a question of fact which must be submitted to the jury.”); see also United States v. Borgheriu 
No. 4:22-CR-06040-MKD, 2023 WL 8634784, at *3–5 (E.D. Wash. Dec. 13, 2023) (disputes 
over defendant’s awareness of SBA rules, reasonable interpretations of loan documents, Page ID
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and beliefs about permissible uses of funds “remain in dispute” and “are questions for 
the jury, not the Court”). 
III. Conclusion 
For these reasons, Defendant Richard Sc ott Myers’ Motion to Dismiss Counts 
Related to PPP Loan Applications and Forgiveness Based on the Due Process Clause and 
the Rule of Lenity. (Doc. 84) is DENIED. 
SO ORDERED. 
Dated: June 8, 2026 
 ______________________________ 
 D A V I D W . D U G A N 
 U n i t e d S t a t e s D i s t r i c t J u d g e 
 
 
Judge 
Dugan
Digitally signed 
by Judge Dugan 
Date: 
2026.06.08 
22:31:41 -05'00' Page ID
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