Former Missouri Democrat Rep. Cori Bush’s husband was charged with two counts of wire fraud for allegedly filing fraudulent applications to illegally collect more than $20,000 in federal COVID relief funds, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia.

Cortney Merritts, 46, of St. Louis, Missouri, was charged in a federal indictment Thursday after he allegedly filed the falsified documents with the Small Business Administration in 2020 and 2021 under the Economic Injury Disaster Loan Program (EIDL) and Paycheck Protection Program (PPP).

According to the indictment, Merritts received an $8,500 EIDL loan from the SBA in July 2020 for a moving business called Vetted Couriers after certifying that he had six employees and had generated $32,000 in gross revenue the previous year.

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