Jury Convicts Portland’s Beniamin Lucescu in SBA Pandemic-Relief Wire-Fraud Case

ANALYSIS · September 11, 2026 (USAO-OR announcement / “guilty today” wire dateline) Slug: portland-pandemic-relief-funds-conviction

Primary sources

  • Assigned primary (USAO District of Oregon): Portland Man Found Guilty of Stealing Pandemic Relief Funds — live justice.gov page blocked this pass by an Akamai interstitial; full HTML not retrieved. Wayback CDX lists a 200 snapshot at 20260912015516 (Sept. 12, 2026, 01:55 UTC); archive body timed out / empty this pass.
  • USAO dateline (distributor, not the PR body): PUBT listing — “United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Oregon 09/11/2026 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 09/11/2026 18:46”; “published this content on September 11, 2026 … Distributed … September 12, 2026 at 00:46 UTC.” PUBT did not host the article text (“The text of this article is not available at the moment”).
  • Nearest full-text reprint of the USAO release: Right Now Oregon, Sept. 11, 2026 — local rewrite using USAO facts and the Bradford quote. Treat as wire reprint of the USAO release, not an independent investigation. Title on this outlet differs (“Convicted in Nearly $500,000 Pandemic Relief Fraud Scheme”).
  • Title-matched teaser: Spot On Oregon — exact USAO headline; opening clause “A federal jury found Beniamin Lucescu, age 57, a Portland resident, guilty today of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering…”; full story pointed to Gorge Country Media (full Gorge page not retrieved this pass).

Court record (findable; verdict PDF not retrieved)

  • Docket: United States v. Lucescu, No. 3:24-cr-00235-AB, U.S. District Court, District of Oregon (Portland Division). Filed June 11, 2024. Assigned Judge Amy M. Baggio. CourtListener/RECAP docket hubs: 70365428 / 68937341 (HTML pages 403 this pass; API/search metadata used).
  • Original indictment (ECF 1, June 11, 2024): sealed/redacted indictment as to Beniamin Lucian Lucescu (1) — Count 1: wire fraud (forfeiture allegation). Unredacted indictment ECF 2 under seal.
  • Superseding indictment (ECF 31): entered September 17, 2025 as to Beniamin Lucescu and Georgeta Lucescu (matches USAO date).
  • Government trial memorandum (ECF 94, July 31, 2026, RECAP PDF retrieved): gov.uscourts.ord.180322.94.0_1.pdf — charging statutes and EIDL theory as the United States expected to prove; not a verdict.
  • Defense trial memorandum (ECF 87, July 31, 2026, RECAP PDF retrieved): gov.uscourts.ord.180322.87.0.pdf — defense framing of the charged theory; not a finding.
  • Trial minutes (RECAP docket text, PDFs not retrieved):
  • ECF 138 (Sept. 8, 2026): Jury Trial Day 1; jury seated and sworn; continued to Sept. 9.
  • ECF 141 (Sept. 9, 2026): Day 2; witnesses Alfonso Olivas, Kevin Darling; continued to Sept. 10, 9:00 a.m., Courtroom 14B.
  • ECF 142 (Sept. 10, 2026): Day 3; witnesses Kevin Darling, Colleen Anderson, David Bucholz, Amber Andersen; plaintiff rests; defendant rests; continued to Sept. 11, 2026, 9:00 a.m.
  • ECF 143 (Sept. 10, 2026): Rule 29 motions for judgment of acquittal on all counts denied; “all counts will be decided by the jury.”
  • ECF 149 (entry date 2026-09-13): Jury Verdict — Redacted (Public) — PDF not available in RECAP this pass; count-by-count boxes unread.
  • ECF 150: Jury Verdict — Unredacted (Non-Public).
  • Undocketed-number entry, entry date 2026-09-13: Jury Trial Completed.
  • Prior, separate criminal case (not this verdict): United States v. Lucescu, No. 3:09-cr-00247, D. Or., filed June 24, 2009, terminated Aug. 1, 2011 (CourtListener). Government trial memo states Aug. 1, 2011 sentence of 1 day on each of five counts concurrent, 5 years supervised release, restitution $365,059.93. 2010 jury conviction for bank fraud and wire fraud is also in contemporaneous press (Oregonian, Dec. 3, 2010; Oregon RealEstateRama, Dec. 6, 2010). Do not fold the 2009–11 mortgage case into this pandemic-relief verdict.

Business-registry corroboration (existence only)

  • Oregon SOS business listings for ROSE CITY SENIOR CARE LLC, registry #39499496, registered Dec. 8, 2006; registered agent Georgeta Lucescu; 2739 SE Franklin St, Portland, OR 97202 (OpenGovUS; OpenCorpData). Corroborates that a real Oregon LLC existed; not proof of the charged fraud.

Core Tension

USAO headline “stealing pandemic relief funds” / “false information about their business” / round “nearly $500,000” vs the charged theory in the parties’ trial memos and the government’s bill of particulars: promissory fraud on post-approval EIDL use certifications (personal federal tax debt + cryptocurrency), not a fake-company or PPP-eligibility case — plus a jury conviction on named offense categories with sentence not yet imposed, a wife still untried, and a count-by-count verdict form that has not been read.

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