FEDERAL CRIMINAL LAWYERS

Am I Safe From Prosecution if 5 Years Have Passed?

Welcome to Spodek Law Group. Our goal is to explain exactly why the 5-year countdown you were relying on stopped existing in 2022—and what that means for your actual exposure. If you’re reading this hoping to hear that the clock ran out on your 2020 PPP loan, the news is worse than you expected.

Here’s what you need to understand: the 5-year deadline you were counting down to was eliminated in August 2022. Congress saw people waiting out the clock and extended the statute of limitations from 5 years to 10 years—2.5 years before any 5-year deadlines would have actually protected anyone. The finish line you were racing toward doesn’t exist anymore. It was moved while you were still running.

The 5-year mark that used to be your protection is now just the halfway point. April 2025 isn’t when your exposure ends. It’s when you’re exactly in the middle of it. You have 5 more years of exposure you didn’t know about. And here’s the part that should really concern you: every year you spent waiting, your position got worse. Cooperation value decreases with time. Early disclosure is rewarded. Late discovery is punished. The strategy that seemed smart in 2021 is exactly what Congress anticipated and defeated.

The Countdown That Stopped Counting

Heres the thing about the 5-year wire fraud statute that nobody is explaining to you clearly: it only applied to PPP loans processed through non-bank lenders. Traditional bank fraud under 18 U.S.C. 1344 has ALWAYS had a 10-year statute of limitations. The 5-year limit was for wire fraud under 18 U.S.C. 1343—which prosecutors used for loans through fintech lenders like Kabbage, BlueVine, and other non-bank platforms.

So even before Congress extended anything, the 5-year deadline you were counting on might never have applied to you in the first place. If your loan came from a traditional bank, your exposure was always 10 years. The August 2022 extension didnt change your situation—it just confirmed what was already true.

But lets say you did get your loan from a fintech lender. You thought you had the 5-year protection. You were counting down the days. April 2020 plus 5 years equals April 2025. You were almost there.

The 5-year deadline you were counting down to was eliminated in August 2022—2.5 years before it would have protected anyone. Congress signed the PPP and Bank Fraud Enforcement Harmonization Act on August 5, 2022. That law extended the statute of limitations for ALL PPP fraud to 10 years, regardless of wheather the lender was a bank or a fintech company.

Think about the timing. The earliest PPP loans were issued in April 2020. The 5-year deadline for those loans would have been April 2025. Congress acted in August 2022—more then two and a half years before anyone would have been protected by the 5-year limit. This wasnt reactive. This was surgical prevention of a mass escape.

August 2022: The Day Your Deadline Moved

OK so what actually happened in August 2022? Two bills passed Congress and were signed by President Biden. Together, they fundamentaly changed the enforcement landscape for every PPP borrower who was counting on the 5-year limit.

The PPP and Bank Fraud Enforcement Harmonization Act of 2022 extended the statute of limitations for PPP fraud from 5 years to 10 years. The language specifically covers fraud “by borrowers under the Paycheck Protection Program.” Thats you. The Pandemic Oversight website announced it with celebration: “Now, regardless of the type of lender, watchdogs will have ten years to pursue fraud in small business relief programs.”

Heres what the government actualy said about why they extended the statute. According to the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee, the extension was designed to give “watchdogs” more time to “hold pandemic fraudsters accountable.” They didnt use neutral language. They called borrowers “fraudsters” and celebrated the additional time to catch them.

And notice who was celebrating. This wasnt a defense-oriented bill. This was a prosecution-oriented bill. Every law enforcement agency and oversight body praised it. Defense attorneys were silent becuase there was nothing to celebrate from the borrowers perspective. The extension benefited exactly one side—and it wasnt yours.

At Spodek Law Group, we watched this happen in real time. Clients were calling asking about there countdown timers, and we had to explain that the timer had been reset. The August 2022 extension wasnt a surprise to anyone watching the legislative process—but it was a shock to borrowers who had been focused on running out the clock instead of monitoring the rules.

Why Ex Post Facto Won’t Save You

Heres the argument you probly think you have: “They cant change the rules after the game started. Thats ex post facto.”

The problem is that ex post facto only protects you in one specific situation: when the statute of limitations has already expired and the government tries to revive it. The Supreme Court addressed this directly in Stogner v. California back in 2003. The Court ruled that a law enacted AFTER a limitations period has expired violates the Constitution when it tries to revive a time-barred prosecution.

But—and this is critical—extending a statute that hasnt expired yet is completly constitutional. The Court has consistantly held that you dont have a “vested right” in the expiration of the statute until it actualy expires. If the government acts before the deadline, they can extend that deadline. Its not ex post facto becuase your protection never existed in the first place.

Courts have consistently upheld retroactive statute extensions when the original deadline hasn’t expired yet—your ex post facto argument fails. Look at the timeline. First PPP loans: April 2020. Five-year deadline for those loans: April 2025. Congress acted: August 2022. The earliest deadline was still 2.5 years away when Congress extended it. There was nothing to “revive” becuase nothing had expired yet.

Some defendants have tried to make this argument anyway. It hasnt worked. Courts have uniformly rejected ex post facto challenges to the PPP statute extension becuase the original deadlines hadnt passed when the law changed. The constitutional protection you think you have dosent apply to your situation.

Think about what this means for your strategy. If you were waiting becuase you thought the 5-year deadline was coming and then you could challenge any prosecution as unconstitutional—that was never going to work. The government acted before your protection would have kicked in. They planned it that way.

The Fintech Loophole That Closed

Heres the hidden connection most people miss entirely: the 5-year loophole only existed becuase of a quirk in how diffrent fraud statutes work.

Bank fraud under 18 USC 1344 has always had a 10-year statute of limitations. If you got your PPP loan from Bank of America, Chase, Wells Fargo—any traditional bank—prosecutors could use bank fraud charges. Your exposure was always 10 years. The 5-year countdown you were relying on was never real.

Wire fraud under 18 USC 1343 has a 5-year statute. This is what prosecutors used for fintech loans. If you got your loan from Kabbage, BlueVine, Womply, or similar non-bank lenders, the bank fraud statute didnt apply becuase those lenders wernt “financial institutions” under the statute. Prosecutors had to use wire fraud instead—which meant only 5 years.

This created an absurd situation were the exact same fraud could have diffrent prosecution windows depending on which lender happend to process your loan. Someone who stole $100,000 through Chase had 10 years of exposure. Someone who stole $100,000 through Kabbage had only 5 years. Same crime, diffrent timeline.

Congress called this “harmonization” when they extended the statute. What they were really doing was closing the fintech loophole. They didnt want fraudsters escaping prosecution just becuase they happend to use a non-bank lender. So they made all PPP fraud subject to the same 10-year window, regardless of lender type.

If you chose a fintech lender specificaly becuase you knew they wernet banks and thought this would limit your exposure—that calculation was wrong. The loophole you were counting on was exactly what Congress targeted.

What Prosecutors Are Doing Right Now

Heres something that should make the situation feel more real: prosecutors arent winding down PPP enforcement. There ramping it up.

According to the DOJ’s 2024 enforcement report, the COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force has charged more then 3,500 defendants with federal crimes and recovered more than $1.4 billion in government funds. There are five dedicated Strike Forces still operating in California, Colorado, Maryland, New Jersey, and Florida. The Pandemic Analytics Center of Excellence is using sophisticated data products to detect fraud patterns.

These arent wind-down statistics. These are acceleration statistics. The government is charging more people, not fewer. They have a decade to work with—and there only halfway through it.

Think about the cases being prosecuted in 2024 and 2025. Ian Patrick Jackson became the 12th defendant charged in connection with an Atlanta-based PPP fraud ring in 2025. The investigation has been ongoing for years. New defendants keep getting added. These are not historical cases from the panic of 2020—these are current prosecutions of fraud that happened five years ago.

Todd Spodek has seen this pattern play out with clients. People assume that if there going to be charged, it would have happend by now. But thats not how complex fraud investigations work. Building a federal case takes years. The 10-year statute gives prosecutors time to work methodicaly. There not in a hurry becuase they dont have to be.

And think about were the government is focusing there resources. There not primarily going after the small-dollar loans that were clearly fraudulent from day one. Those are easy cases—they get prosecuted quickly. What takes time is building cases against people who were sophistocated enough to create plausible documentation, who had actual businesses but maybe inflated the numbers, who thought they were carefull enough to avoid detection.

The longer investigations are exactly the ones that target people who thought they were being smart. The quick prosecutions happened in 2021 and 2022—the obvious fraudsters who bought Lamborghinis and posted on social media. The 2024, 2025, and 2026 prosecutions are the ones that required forensic accounting, witness interviews, and careful document analysis. If your one of those cases, the investigation is probly happening right now.

Consider what federal investigators can access. Bank records going back years. IRS filings. State employment records. SBA documentation. Lender files that are now being preserved for 10 years under the August 2024 retention extension. Cross-referencing this data takes time—but they have the time. And the infrastructure is in place to make it happen systematicaly.

The Cooperation Window You Missed

Every year you waited thinking you were getting closer to safety, your cooperation value was decreasing. This is the part nobody wants to hear.

Federal sentencing gives credit for cooperation. But not all cooperation is equal. Early cooperation—coming forward before your caught, providing information the government didnt already have—is rewarded most. Late cooperation—admitting facts after your arrested, confirming what prosecutors already know—is worth much less.

Every year you spent waiting was a year you wernt cooperating. Every month you spent counting down to April 2025 was a month your cooperation value was declining. The strategy that seemed smart—wait it out, see what happens, maybe they wont notice—was exactly the opposite of what would have helped you.

Heres the uncomfortable truth about waiting: it signals consciousness of guilt. You wouldnt be counting down to a deadline unless you knew there was something to escape from. The fact that you were relying on a 5-year limit implies you understood you had 5-year exposure. That awareness is exactly what prosecutors point to when arguing you knew your conduct was wrong.

The “wait it out” strategy that seemed clever in 2021 is exactly what Congress anticipated and defeated. Defense attorney websites had countdown clocks showing how many days until PPP exposure expired. Those clocks were public. Congress saw them. And they changed the rules to make sure nobody slipped through.

Consider were you are now compared to were you could have been. If you had come forward in 2021 with a proactive disclosure, you would have had maximum cooperation credit, the ability to shape the narrative, and leverage to negotiate. Now—five years later—you have less information to offer, less credibility as a cooperator, and the government has had time to build a case independant of anything you might provide.

The cooperation calculus shifts dramaticaly over time. In 2021, very few people were coming forward voluntarily. Anyone who disclosed early stood out. They could identify co-conspirators the government didnt know about. They could provide documents before subpoenas were issued. They could shape the investigation in ways that benefited there own position. Early cooperators got the best deals becuase they had the most to offer.

By 2025, thats completly diffrent. The government has been investigating for five years. They have sophisticated data analytics. They have cooperators who came forward years ago. What can you offer now that they dont already have? The answer, for most people, is much less then they could have offered in 2021. Your cooperation value has been declining every year while you were counting down to a deadline that no longer exists.

Where You Actually Stand Today

OK so what does this actualy mean for your specific situation? Lets walk through the calculation.

Step One: Find Your Loan Date

When did you recieve your PPP loan? April 2020? July 2020? January 2021? That date is your starting point.

Step Two: Add 10 Years

If your loan was April 2020, your statute runs until April 2030. If it was January 2021, you’re looking at January 2031. If you got a second-draw loan in March 2021, that extends to March 2031.

Step Three: Consider Forgiveness

If you filed for forgiveness—and made certifications on that forgiveness application—your clock might run from the forgiveness date, not the loan date. The “last act” rule means the statute starts from your last fraudulent act. If you certified false information on a forgiveness application in late 2021 or 2022, your exposure could extend into 2031 or 2032.

Step Four: Calculate Your Remaining Exposure

Subtract todays date from your statue expiration. If your looking at 2030 or 2031, you have 5-6 more years of exposure. Thats longer then the time thats already passed since you got the loan.

The 5-year mark wasnt your finish line. It was your midpoint. Your ahead—and behind—of exactly were you thought you were.

At Spodek Law Group, we walk clients through this calculation regularaly. The reaction is usually shock. People come in thinking there almost done with PPP exposure. They leave realizing there exactley halfway through it. The psychological adjustment takes time.

The emotional impact of this realization is significant. Youve been living with the countdown in the back of your mind for years. Maybe you checked the calendar ocasionally, watching the days tick down toward what you thought was safety. Maybe you made plans for after April 2025—the vacation you would take, the weight that would lift from your shoulders. And now you learn that 2025 is just the halfway point. You have as many years ahead of you as behind you.

Some clients ask if maybe the extension dosent apply to them. Maybe theres an exception. Maybe there case is diffrent. The answer is almost always no. The extension applies to all PPP fraud, regardless of when the loan was issued, regardless of which lender processed it, regardless of wheather the borrower knew about the law change. Its comprehensive and retroactive—and its constitutional becuase it was passed before any deadlines expired.

But understanding your actual exposure is better then believing a comfortable fiction. The 5-year myth was always a trap—either becuase your lender was a bank (making it 10 years anyway) or becuase Congress would extend it (which they did). The sooner you accept the reality, the sooner you can make informed decisions.

Heres the final thing to understand: the diffrence between acting now and continuing to wait could be significant. Prosecutors are still building cases. There still adding defendants to existing investigations. The enforcement infrastructure is fully operational. Every month that passes is a month closer to potentialy being charged—not a month closer to being safe.

If you have questions about your actual PPP exposure and what options you still have, call Spodek Law Group at 212-300-5196. The 5-year countdown you were relying on dosent exist anymore. But that dosent mean you have no options. It just means your options are diffrent then you thought—and understanding them accurately is the first step toward making good decisions. The worst thing you can do is continue waiting for a deadline that will never come.