Massachusetts Couple Charged With $627K in Workers’ Compensation Fraud and More

A Hopkinton, Massachusetts couple has been arrested and charged in connection with separate schemes to defraud their workers’ compensation insurance carriers, the Small Business Administration (SBA) and their mortgage lender.

According to the U.S. Attorney, Ronaldo Solano and Adriana Solano were indicted by a federal grand jury in Boston on mail, wire and bank fraud charges.

According to the indictment, between 2012 and 2020, the Solanos — who operate a roofing and construction company based in Framingham under the names H&R Roofing & Construction Inc. and H&R Roofing & Siding Corp. — avoided more than $627,000 in workers’ compensation insurance premiums by underreporting their payroll and paying workers through a shell company called Target Roofing.

The indictment alleges that at various points they told their insurers they had no employees or that all employees did administrative work only. They allegedly provided incomplete bank and tax records and accepted premium refund checks from two unnamed insurers, one in Burlington, the other in Boston, according to the court documents.

Prosecutors did not stop at investigating the couple’s payroll and workers’ compensation.

Separately, prosecutors have alleged that, between 2021 and 2022, the couple also submitted a loan application on behalf of H&R Roofing & Siding Corp. to the SBA under the Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) Program, which provided for pandemic relief under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act. In the application, they allegedly requested $2 million in relief funds for working capital and other eligible business expenses.

After receiving the pandemic relief funds, prosecutors charge that they transferred $1 million of the funds to a personal bank account they shared, from which they allegedly used more than $825,000 for a down payment towards a home in Hopkinton.

The indictment further claims they borrowed another $770,500 from a mortgage lender to fund the purchase of the Hopkinton home but did not disclose to their lender that they were using EIDL funds for the down payment.

The details in the indictment are allegations. The Solanos are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.