For more than a year, former House Representative and GOP gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin has faced social media allegations that a fraudulent Paycheck Protection Program loan taken under his wife’s maiden name actually benefited the Zeldins.
The $20,208 loan was taken under the name of Diana Gadish and used the family’s address and their personal information, including address and date of birth.
In December 2021, Diana Zeldin filed a police report about the identity theft with the Suffolk County Police Department, and Lee Zeldin said the couple also reported the scam to the Small Business Administration. The loan was approved on April 18 of the same year.
But he hadn’t heard anything since then, and he said he was seldom aware that political opponents were trying to make hay with the issue by constantly retweeting stories and allegations related to it.
Letter from Suffolk prosecutors says Lee Zeldin’s wife Diana has been the victim of identity fraud.
Now, Zeldin shared with The Point a letter from the Suffolk County Attorney’s Office that contained ample evidence that the money was stolen and concluded:
“A thorough investigation of this report has confirmed that Ms. Zeldin was the victim of the theft of her personal identification information in order to apply for and receive the Harvest Small Business Finance PPP loan. There is no evidence that Ms. Zeldin received any money in connection with this loan, nor did she give permission or authorization for anyone to use her personal identification information to obtain a PPP loan.”
The letter was signed by Assistant District Attorney Jessica Lighthouse of the prosecutor’s Financial Crimes Bureau.
The letter cited included recordings from Charter Communications, T-Mobile and Horizon showing that multiple out-of-state IP addresses were used to process the loan applications and the money was distributed via a Green Dot debit card for which no Bank account is required and a total lack of any connection to the Zeldins. According to the letter, the one IP address identified as “local” was traced to a Brooklyn apartment building “where the origin of these electronic communications is unclear.”
As for the impact on their lives, Lee Zeldin told The Point Monday that aside from having to fill out the police and SBA reports, they weren’t really affected. The couple have not been the victims of another theft, nor have they received any information as to who might have committed the theft.
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