A cocaine wholesaler and fraudster has been sentenced to prison time, according to the Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier. 40 year old Parrish Austin was sentenced to concurrent 20 year sentences for Conspiracy to Distribute Cocaine and Wire Fraud. He will also have to serve five years of supervised release and pay more than $18,000 in restitution. Austin provided kilograms of cocaine to a web of smaller distributors. Investigators say he brought at least 10 kilograms of cocaine to the area before stopping in October of 2022. In May of 2021 Austin procured a loan for more than $18,000 from the Paycheck Protection Program from the Small Business Administration after claiming his sports and performing arts promotion business grossed $88,000 before the pandemic. He then applied for loan forgiveness and that was granted. The business however, did not exist. He is one of ten Waterloo residents to be convicted of COVID relief fraud charges.
