Blizzard warnings in Northwest Minnesota, winter weather advisories across the state

MPR News helps you turn down the noise and build shared understanding. Turn up your support for this public resource and keep trusted journalism accessible to all. 

Turn Up Your Support

A judge on Monday sentenced a one-time Minneapolis business consultant to seven years in federal prison for a multimillion dollar scheme to defraud government pandemic aid programs. 

Through his marketing company Futuristic Management Group and a nonprofit that he started, Tezzaree El-Amin Champion submitted phony loan applications to the Paycheck Protection Program and Economic Injury Disaster Loan program as well as a Hennepin County small business grant program. 

Champion, 28, pleaded guilty in February to wire fraud, money laundering and being a felon in possession of a firearm. Champion is ineligible to own guns following his 2018 conviction in Hennepin County for shooting a man amid a dispute over a vehicle sale.

Marcus Hamilton, 29, Champion’s business partner and co-defendant, also pleaded guilty in the case and is awaiting sentencing. 

At a two-hour hearing in Minneapolis on Monday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Forbes said that Champion began his fraud scheme while still on supervised release after leaving prison for the assault conviction. 

Arguing for a prison term of nearly 12 years, Forbes said that Champion operated a sophisticated scheme that involved hiring “freelancers to assist in the fraud,” including a woman who worked remotely from overseas. Forbes noted that while Champion stole nearly $3.5 million from taxpayers, he submitted $6.5 million in fraudulent loan applications. 

“It was not the product of a single fraud,” Forbes said. “This was instead an accumulation of a large amount of individual fraudulent applications that accumulated to this overall number.” 

According to prosecution filings in the case, Champion defrauded at least a dozen entities including state and federal agencies, as well as nonprofits including the Otto Bremer Trust, Youthprise and the Greater Twin Cities United Way. 

In 2021, law enforcement received three separate tips about the fraud, including from a contractor for Hennepin County, from a man who reported being a victim of the scheme and through a civil lawsuit that another victim had filed against Champion in 2020. 

Forbes noted that Champion helped a “client” submit fraudulent applications to the Economic Injury Disaster Loan program and Hennepin County’s Small Business Relief and Reopening grant program, which used federal money from the CARES Act, on behalf of a phony boxing gym in north Minneapolis. 

According to court filings, Champion submitted a business tax return that claimed that “Chaos Twin Cities Boxing Gym” had $301,000 in annual revenue. The return listed a non-existent address on Bryant Avenue North.  

Forbes said that Champion recruited a man identified in court only as “T.J.” to act as the gym’s owner, then urged him to invest $125,000 of the fraud proceeds into Champion’s property business. T.J. never got any of the money back, and is on the hook to repay the loan to government. 

Champion also ripped off the U.S. Justice Department, the agency that would later prosecute him. 

Through a nonprofit called Encouraging Leaders, Champion applied for and was awarded a $703,000 grant from the department for a federal initiative to help youth affected by opioid addiction. According to a 121-page search warrant application that was unsealed following a grand jury’s 

 in 2024, Champion collected more than $234,000 after falsely stating that Encouraging Leaders, which registered as a Minnesota nonprofit in 2020, had been engaged in substance abuse prevention and intervention efforts since 2015.

Forbes said that Champion “undermined the noble public purposes” of the programs he defrauded.

“Offenders were not helped, fentanyl addicts were not assisted, local businesses didn’t get the assistance that they deserved,” Forbes said, adding that Champion spent the stolen money on himself, including taking “extravagant trips” to Miami and Los Angeles.

“There’s no dispute that the conduct was serious,” said defense attorney Jill Brisbois, who requested a three-year sentence. She added that her client intended to help the north Minneapolis community where he grew up.

“Encouraging Leaders was a dream that gave him purpose when he was released from prison,” Brisbois said. She also noted that the victim of the earlier assault that sent Champion to state prison wrote a letter of support on his behalf to U.S. District Judge Katherine Menendez. 

“I pleaded guilty because I am guilty,” Champion said as more than a dozen family members and other supporters watched from the courtroom gallery. “I broke the law. I hurt not only the government but myself, my family and the community.” 

Menendez said Champion’s conduct was “relentless” and reflects “a scale and a depth that’s disturbing.”

“It is an incredibly serious set of crimes no matter how we measure it,” the judge said. “It is an enormous amount of money. It is a very large amount of victims. It took so many separate acts.”

Menendez ultimately handed Champion an 84-month prison term. Because his crimes were nonviolent, prosecutors did not seek pretrial detention. The judge is allowing Champion to spend the holidays with his family before reporting to prison on Jan. 14. 

In addition to the prison term, Menendez also imposed five years of supervised release and ordered Champion to pay nearly $3.5 million in restitution. 

Champion is the great-nephew of Minnesota Senate President Bobby Joe Champion, DFL-Minneapolis, and the son of Minneapolis North basketball star Khalid El-Amin, who played for the University of Connecticut and the Chicago Bulls. Neither man is accused of wrongdoing in connection with the case.

Crime, Law and Justice

NewsPartners

Homepage

Matt Sepic

Author

Tezzaree El-Amin Champion was sentenced to 7 years in federal prison for a $3.5 million pandemic-aid fraud scheme involving phony loans and a fake nonprofit.

COVID loan fraudster gets 7 years, ordered to repay $3.5M

Go Deeper.

Like this?