On Monday, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall announced that two Birmingham men have been indicted on allegations of fraudulently obtaining nearly $40,000 in Paycheck Protection Program, PPP, loans. The men, a father and son, were also charged with committing tax evasion.
According to the AG’s office, both men were served their indictments Friday at the Jefferson County Jail before each posted a $20,000 bond. The father, Sebastian Alexander Carrillo, 54, is an employee of the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, his son, Sebastian Alexander Gideon, is 27.
The indictments came following a joint investigation by the AG’s office and the Alabama Department of Revenue. Marshall’s Special Prosecutions Division had previously presented evidence to a Jefferson County grand jury on December 9 before the indictments were handed down.
Carrillo faces one count of first-degree theft by deception for allegedly obtaining $20,415 from the Paycheck Protection Program under false pretenses and three counts of attempting to evade or defeat income tax on unreported income from 2020 to 2022.
Gideon has also been charged with one count of first-degree theft by deception for allegedly obtaining $18,123 in PPP funds under false pretenses. Additionally, he faces two counts of subscribing to a false tax return for tax years 2020 and 2021, and one count of attempting to evade or defeat income tax on unreported income for tax year 2022.
First-degree theft constitutes a Class B felony carrying a sentence of two to 20 years in prison with fines up to $30,000 under Alabama law. Attempting to evade or defeat a tax and subscribing to a false tax return are both unclassified felonies–the former being punishable by up to five years in prison with a maximum fine of $100,000, while the latter carries a sentence of up to three years in prison and a maximum fine of $100,000.
The Paycheck Protection Program was established in 2021 under the Biden administration in response to the COVID-19 pandemic with the goal of preventing business closures through low-interest loans. The program provided small businesses with funds to pay up to 8 weeks of payroll costs, as well as interest on mortgages, rent or utilities. The administration also instituted PPP loan forgiveness to provide economic relief to those small businesses adversely affected by the pandemic.
Under the program, access to PPP loans was explicitly limited to small businesses, eligible nonprofit organizations, Veterans organizations and Tribal businesses, as well as certain self-employed individuals and independent contractors. Despite this, numerous instances of fraud occurred in which individuals illegally claimed PPP loans by misrepresenting their business operations.
In 2024, then-Attorney General Merrick Garland reported that the COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force, CFETF, had charged more than 3,500 defendants, filed more than 400 civil lawsuits, and seized or forfeited over $1.4 billion in relation to stolen COVID-19 relief funds.
In December of 2025, the U.S. Department of Justice’s Fraud Section also reported that over 200 defendants had been prosecuted in over 13o criminal cases in relation to PPP loan fraud, seizing “over $78 million in cash proceeds derived from fraudulently obtained PPP funds, as well as numerous real estate properties and luxury items purchased with such proceeds.”
In Alabama, a Montgomery woman was sentenced to 45 months in prison in 2024 for defrauding the PPP program of nearly $610,000. Authorities accused Zsa Zsa Bouvier Couch of submitting six fraudulent applications for PPP loans in which she falsely inflated both the number of employees who worked for her purported business and the business’ average monthly payroll.
As it relates to the alleged fraud committed by Carrillo and Gideon, Marshall’s office stated that no further information could be shared at this time.
