A San Francisco police officer claimed Covid business relief cash for a day care center that did not exist, prosecutors say.
Adam Eatia is accused of fraudulently obtaining $20,832 from the Small Business Administration in 2021, according to the San Mateo County district attorney’s office.
It’s not the first time Eatia has been accused of fraud. In 2022, the veteran cop was arrested on suspicion that he carried out a complicated car insurance scheme in which he wrongly collected tens of thousands of dollars in payouts after a collision and impersonated a fellow police officer. Eatia is due in court Jan. 30 to set a trial date in that case; he denies the charges.
At the time he received the SBA loan, Eatia was employed by the San Francisco Police Department. He told The Standard he’d resigned from the department and hasn’t worked in three years, but OpenPayroll.com, which tracks government employees, said he earned $92,899.50 in 2023 as a city police officer. The SFPD has not confirmed whether he is still employed.
San Mateo County District Attorney Stephen Wagstaffe alleges that Eatia applied for the loan under the guise of supporting a business called Adam’s Childcare, which ostensibly opened in 2019. On the forms, Eatia indicated he was the sole proprietor of the facility, prosecutors claim. The nonexistent business was registered to an apartment building on Brosnan Court in South San Francisco, a street where Eatia once lived.
‘The loan was for child care’
Eatia denies the charges. He told The Standard he is a single father of five who thought he was eligible for assistance after a difficult divorce.
“It goes without saying that there is no merit to it,” Eatia said, referring to the allegations against him. He has pleaded not guilty to felony charges of obtaining money by false pretenses and making a false financial statement.
Eatia says the incident is a misunderstanding with grave consequences. He believed he’d found a program, which he’d heard about through a TikTok video, that helps parents who have lost a job.
“I have no idea where a day care came from. The loan was for child care,” he told The Standard by phone Monday. “There was no fictitious business. I said this was for diapers and child care needs for my kids.”
His attorney is trying to get him into a mental health diversion program in San Mateo County rather than possible imprisonment for the alleged day care scam, court documents show.
Although Eatia had experience in law enforcement, he said it took these cases against him to understand what it is like to be dragged into the criminal justice system.
“Everyone says they’re innocent. Innocence is not proven in the court. Innocence is proven with money. I have zero cents to my name,” Eatia said. “I never saw the hardship that people went through.”