Mississippi business magnates Tommy and James Duff are slugging it out in federal court with the Justice Department and some private attorneys over alleged PPP fraud. Michael Goldberg reported in Barksdale Today:
Billionaire Tommy Duff, a likely candidate for governor, and his brother James Duff are being sued by California-based attorneys on behalf of the federal government alleging the men and their companies improperly obtained over $6.7 million in federal pandemic loans. The lawsuit, which was filed under seal in the U.S. Northern District of California in 2024, claims the brothers – the wealthiest people in Mississippi – took advantage of a program designed to help small businesses cope with the COVID-19 pandemic. The plaintiff in the case is Relator LLC, a limited liability corporation formed, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, by California attorneys Anoush Hakimi and Peter Shahriari. ... The complaint references that wealth to paint a stark picture, alleging the Duffs “looted the government” by submitting “falsified loan documents” to the Small Business Administration in order to obtain taxpayer-funded payments through the Paycheck Protection Program. Congress created the program in March of 2020 to keep businesses afloat as the global economy shuddered to a halt at the outset of the pandemic. In court filings, attorneys for Duff have sharply contested the claims, arguing the lawsuit relies on “inflammatory rhetoric” instead of facts. The Duffs’ legal team has also pointed out that the California attorneys have filed similar lawsuits against other individuals, some of which have been dismissed, and argue the lawsuit is the product of trial lawyers looking to capitalize on confusion surrounding pandemic-era government programs. .... In a statement to Mississippi Today, Matthew D. Miller, an attorney for the Duffs, said he expected his clients to be “fully vindicated by the judicial process.” “The PPP loans were lawfully obtained, fully disclosed and reviewed by banks, the SBA and federal attorneys,” Miller wrote. “This case is exactly the kind of parasitic, web-scraped lawsuit that courts have repeatedly rejected from this plaintiff. The allegations were also independently reviewed by the Department of Justice which, after this review, declined to intervene in this lawsuit.”
The lawsuit and motion to dismiss are posted below.
The case was transferred because the Duffs successfully argued the U.S. District Court in California lacked personal jurisdiction over the brothers.
38 comments:
I agree with the Duff's. They employ more people in rural MS that you can imagine. The Duff's have made a good life and legacy for themselves.
If true, a Californian will have done more to stop welfare fraud than Shadrack Tucker White.
Can someone explain how this works? The Federal Government declines to prosecute, so an LLC owned by 2 trial lawyers can bring a suit alleging fraud - and do they keep they money if they win?
The trial lawyers get anywhere between 10 and 30% of sums recovered. That's why there are so many of these lawsuits.Like running a trot line.
Tens of thousands of federal criminal prosecutions have been dismissed by federal prosecutors recently so that they can focus on the immigration and other cases the administration thinks are moreimportant.
The Dems were smart enough to put a public reporting/lawsuit abuse provision in the PPP grift law because there was no way the federal government was going to investigate the largest fraud in America history, especially with the most corrupt executive in charge. And look at here, looks like Duff got caught with his hand in the grift cookie jar. I imagine there’s many more that will be caught before the SoL is up.
PPP was a taxpayer handout/payback to GOP campaign donors with COVID used as cover. If you want to know why inflation ran rampant for the next 5 years, the PPP “loans” program is your answer. As they say with student loans, how about all yall mfers pay back your loans?
These are CA plaintiff lawyers filing everywhere they can. Huge NothingBurger.
$6.7 million, it looks like them boys are amateurs. They need to import some of those Somalis from Minnesota to show them how it's really done.
This is just the tip of the iceberg of the rampant fraud that went on under Trump's PPP squander of taxpayer money.
Personal jurisdiction in federal court in California is a real problem for the plaintiff.
Which desperate GOP candidate is pushing this story with Mississippi Today and other media?
3:42 PM, the PPP program was likely as you stated, “the largest fraud in America history.”
But, your statement that “PPP was a taxpayer handout/payback to GOP campaign donors with COVID used as cover,” is absolute horse s__t, as the PPP program was a total, bipartisan scam.
“Cares Act” final vote counts:
Senate March 25, 2020: 96–0 (unanimous).
House March 27, 2020: Voice vote (no recorded roll call, overwhelmingly approved).
Congratulations 3:42 PM, because you are in the very, very small minority of those that both understand, and are willing to admit that this giveaway of hundreds of billions of dollars, absolutely caused the inflation. The very inflation that, as an example, caused starter homes to cost 50% to 100% more than those same homes did prior to the PPP scam.
But here’s some more fun facts: the so-called loans were forgiven, as long as the so-called borrower could show payroll, etc. had been made over a very, very short period of time. AND – the so-called loan forgiveness applied to businesses that were booming, i.e. did not even need the government welfare - at all.
So with the PPP scam, there’s no “yall mfers pay back your loans,” because the vast, vast majority of loans were forgiven. Now, what do you think business owners do with the 7 or even 8 figure of tax free tax payer funded welfare that they did not need or deserve? Yep, you likely guessed it right; they spent it.
Now for the really sad news: out of the million plus so-called teaching at these so-called learning institutions called colleges, how many have you heard from that are both smart enough to even know what happened, AND have the integrity required to expose “the largest fraud in America history?”
Professional plaintiffs. Scum.
And so begins the mud slinging
So the Barksdalers and LaddCo are really closet GOP supporters? Who knew?
6.7 million in PPP relative to the number of people the Duff's companies employ is a pittance. A quick Google search identifies 16,000 employees nationwide. That's $419 per employee. Even in a California court, this will go nowhere.
So the Cliffnotes are that the California Plaintiff's Attorneys are behaving like California Plaintiff's Attorneys and The Duff Brothers are behaving like The Duff Brothers. Nothing to See Here.
If the government didn’t intervene the case is statistically worth very little money.
2:25 - Oh, that's good!
The bipartisan PPP (as well as other so-called government stimulus) scam exposed so much of the cycle we as a country are in, and some of the reasons our country is on a path to financial ruin.
GREED: PPP exposed the incredible lack of morals and decency via a willingness of business owners to take government welfare, when said welfare was not needed or deserved. And it was widespread. Billionaires like the Duff’s, utility contractors with government contracts that never saw one dime of decreased income much less a loss, private schools receiving 7 figures while parents continued paying 100% of the tuition due; the list can go on and on and on and on.
IGNORANCE: It’s bad enough that the vast majority of eligible business owners that qualified (needing the funds “WAS NOT THE” requirement) took the money whether they needed it or not, but the level of ignorance as to what would happen, INFLATION, is beyond mind boggling. Transitory? How _______ stupid have we really become?
CORRUPTION: Of the small percentage of Americans left with the very little intelligence required to understand that the laws of nature are absolute and unbreakable, that understand with every gimme, there is a gotcha, has even one person come forward to write an opinion piece or a book educating the electorate that this PPP giveaway of billions of dollars to business owners that did not need or deserve it, combined with trillions of other so-called stimulus….is exactly why many today can no longer afford a starter home?
POLITICAL TEAM SPORT MENTALITY: we only need to read 3:42 and 5:34’s posts herein to see that we are now a nation full of tools sheep; always blaming the other party while the indisputable evidence is otherwise. Their failure to understand divide and conquer…..contributes greatly to why our country is drowning in debt and on a path to ruin.
PPP changed this country, maybe forever. While many business owners took their underserved government welfare and got rich or richer in the process, the younger generations without inherited wealth, the common men and women, will be paying for the government funded luxuries, at their expense, for many, many years to come.
The case has already been transferred to the Southern District of Mississippi.
Curious which political opposition research outfit is responsible for stirring this up? One would think the mormon angle would have been the go-to.
I'd bet serious money that 3:42 thinks that Joe Biden is mentally competent.
I have no idea if this is true but this is Mississippi where the rich eat the poor. And this state keeps growing the poor population so the rich has something to eat. My take is it probably happened but nothing will be done.
@8:40am This is a nonsense fairy tale. That is straight up loser talk baloney. Is this what you tell yourself so you think life isn't fair and the rich prey on the poor and it's not your fault? Work harder and you will make more money. You being a loser is not "Mississippi's Fault".
There's a reason why Mississippi is where it's at today; people like 9:20 are Exhibit 1 for why that is.
Of course the Barksdales and the GOP establishment would be all over this lawsuit, one that likely will drag on through the gubernatorial campaign season and give opponents both D and R a talking point.
Can you imagine how often the Duffs get sued? You don’t build a business empire worth billions without having excellent lawyers on retainer. Those excellent lawyers started with the Duff patriarch himself, who was a fine attorney with an entrepreneurial gift that he passed on to his sons.
Very well said.
This is going to cost those California lawyers some money. Not only will they lose in court, but will have to pay the lawyer fees for the Duffs.
Probably not.
But they're rich, so they must be good people, right?
They misrepresented their employee headcount which is hard to defend, as is bilking the government out of 6.5M. The fund was intended for small struggling businesses. The Duff’s are neither…
And IF that paperwork is authenticated as fraudulent....Duff goes down as any kind of candidate for MS Governor.
Bet Duffs end up settling, which is what most often happens, and is an admission of guilt - regardless of the paperwork at the end.
9:23AM, the “fund” as you call it (PPP)…..WAS NOT “intended for small struggling businesses.”
Local private schools getting $1 to $2 million each (while parents continued to pay full tuition) were/ARE NOT “small struggling business.”
Utility contractors (with the owners having net worth’s in the 10’s of millions if not over a hundred million dollars) with government and/or utility contracts (that did not miss one dime of income) ARE NOT “small struggling business.”
If the Duff’s lied about “their employee headcount” to get more of the government welfare that they should have been given the opportunity to get in the first place, then deserve to be jailed.
But, don’t be fooled into thinking that the PPP scam was “intended for small struggling businesses.” Because all of 535 either corrupt and/or mentally r______d members of congress, left out the part about “struggling” or “needing” the “funds” in the March 2020 PPP scam.
9:23AM, the “fund” as you call it (PPP)…..WAS NOT “intended for small struggling businesses.”
Local private schools getting $1 to $2 million each (while parents continued to pay full tuition) were/ARE NOT “small struggling business.”
Utility contractors (with the owners having net worth’s in the 10’s of millions if not over a hundred million dollars) with government and/or utility contracts (that did not miss one dime of income) ARE NOT “small struggling business.”
If the Duff’s lied about “their employee headcount” to get more of the government welfare that they should have been given the opportunity to get in the first place, then deserve to be jailed.
But, don’t be fooled into thinking that the PPP scam was “intended for small struggling businesses.” Because all of 535 either corrupt and/or mentally r______d members of congress, left out the part about “struggling” or “needing” the “funds” in the March 2020 PPP scam.
@ April 8, 2026 at 8:12 PM - What the hell does your soliloquy have to do with the lawsuit at hand, the price of eggs in China or the governor's race?
Look up soliloquy and you'll find that the definition is someone rattling on and on as in talking to himself.
And to the guy who posted that 'settling' is an admission of guilt, what horseshit!
This is a non-story hit piece. I hope it comes out which GOP candidate is pushing this.
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