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United States : Ex-Senate candidate arraigned over $782,000 pandemic-relief fraud
A Haitian businessman and former Senate candidate has been arraigned in Florida on eight federal counts arising from United States pandemic-relief programmes, and freed on a $200,000 personal surety bond. Wesler Jean Baptiste answered the charges on October 2; he faces one money-laundering count and seven of wire fraud, according to Le Floridien, which reports from the federal court docket.
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By NAGO News
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What prosecutors allege
A grand jury in the Southern District of Florida returned the indictment on June 26, 2025, under seal. It alleges that between May 2020 and March 2021 Baptiste filed applications carrying false or misleading statements about staff numbers, revenue and payroll, in order to draw money from the Paycheck Protection Program and the Economic Injury Disaster Loan scheme. The sums come to roughly $782,000: three PPP loans worth more than $774,000 between them, plus an $8,000 EIDL grant. Several companies are named, among them Grande Cines Hotel KLW Corp., trading as La Grande, M&W Tax Pro Servicing LLC, and Le Grande CH Spa Restaurant and Unisex Boutique. Florida corporate filings list Baptiste as chief executive, president and registered agent of the first. Prosecutors say much of the money went on personal spending rather than the business purposes the programmes allowed. The laundering count rests on a single payment: a cheque for $60,635, drawn on proceeds of the alleged fraud, used to buy a 2021 Jeep Gladiator from Fort Lauderdale Automall on March 29, 2021.
The arrest, and what the record does not show
Baptiste was stopped at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport on September 15, 2026, shortly before a Haiti-bound flight. The FBI acted on a time-sensitive alert and worked with Customs and Border Protection to keep him from leaving. The case had sat in fugitive status with a warrant outstanding, but the indictment was sealed, and nothing in the public record establishes that Baptiste knew of it. On the documents available there is no basis for saying he was trying to flee prosecution.
His political record
Baptiste stood for the Haitian Senate in Artibonite in 2016 as a Concorde Nationale candidate, number 29, and took 460 votes, about 0.35% of those cast. Le Floridien notes that recent attempts to link him to present-day Haitian political organisations are not borne out by official electoral records.
Reporting by Le Floridien
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