Miami lender close to Rubio got senator’s support as it fought over PPP loan spoils

Mired in a bitter dispute with hundreds of millions of dollars at stake, now-embattled Miami lender Benworth Capital got the support of a powerful friend.

Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio threw his weight behind a 2021 attempt by Benworth and two other Florida lenders to convince the U.S. Small Business Administration to cap what they owed to a technology company called Womply that each of the lenders had contracted with to help automate their approval of more than $8 billion worth of Paycheck Protection Program loans.

Rubio wasn’t just any lawmaker. He had been central to the creation of the COVID-19 small business relief program one year earlier, when he had been the chair of the Senate’s Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship.

And Benworth wasn’t just any lender. Its founder, Bernie Navarro, has been friends with Rubio for decades and served as a top fundraiser for Rubio’s campaigns. The same year Rubio wrote the letter, he had borrowed $850,000 from Benworth, though he had paid it off the month before he sent the letter.

Rubio’s outreach to the SBA in 2021 wasn’t enough to help convince the agency to act in Benworth’s favor. But it highlights the proximity of the architect of the nearly $1 trillion pandemic loan program to one of the its most active lenders — which is now embroiled in litigation over the spoils of that work.

Benworth took in at least $680 million in fees from approving pandemic loans, most of which were processed and ostensibly vetted by Womply. But under the terms of their contract, Womply got the lion’s share of the money. Benworth has already paid Womply $465 million in fees and a California arbitrator ruled in May that it owes the technology company an additional $118 million.

Benworth was sued last month by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, which demanded that it immediately repay $67 million, the outstanding balance from the cash Benworth borrowed to fund its PPP lending.

Both Rubio and Navarro insist that there was nothing improper about Rubio’s 2021 outreach on behalf of Benworth and the two other lenders, and there have been no allegations of wrongdoing.

“Senator Rubio regularly contacts federal agencies, especially when multiple Florida companies complain that they are not following a law he authored,” Rubio’s office said in a statement. “Senator Rubio publicly contacted the SBA on behalf of multiple Florida lenders, including Benworth, as well as on behalf of Florida recipients applying for PPP forgiveness. And he will continue to do so.”

Navarro said that he asked anyone who would listen for help, including Rubio, and that he didn’t seek special treatment.

“Part of our job as small business owners is to advocate for ourselves. We exercised our right to ask our elected government officials for help interpreting the SBA’s regulations — which were evolving in real-time — as a new PPP lender,” Navarro said. “Our engagement with legislators was handled ethically and through the appropriate channels.”

Rubio and Navarro’s relationship — and the money Rubio had borrowed from Benworth — doesn’t necessarily raise any red flags, said Kedric Payne, the senior ethics director at the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center and former deputy chief counsel at the Office of Congressional Ethics. Payne said that the outreach by Rubio would only be problematic if it seemed like it was directly connected to a contribution or other financial benefit.

“The facts that you have here don’t show anything that would be an ethical issue at this point,” he said.

A long history

The Federal Reserve bank’s lawsuit personally names Navarro and his wife Claudia Navarro and accuses Benworth of fraudulently transferring funds from its Florida entity to a Puerto Rico entity created in 2021. It also says that Benworth paid Bernie Navarro nearly $49 million in dividends between 2021 and 2024.

Benworth has denied the allegations in the suit.

Rubio’s relationship with the Navarros is deep and long-standing. The couple has contributed thousands of dollars to support Rubio’s campaigns over the years and Bernie Navarro has also served as a top fundraiser for several Rubio races. The couple even hosted an event at their home in 2015 for Rubio’s friends and supporters right before Rubio announced what would turn out to be an ill-fated bid for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.

In 2021, the same year Rubio wrote the letter to the SBA, he appointed Navarro to his judicial advisory commission, which advised the senator on recommending potential federal judges. Benworth was one of the top PPP lenders that year, issuing more than 300,000 loans.

Their relationship extends beyond politics.

Bernie Navarro has reportedly advised Rubio on prior real estate transactions, and Rubio had taken out a loan from Benworth Capital the same year he wrote the letter to the SBA. The firm extended a one-year, $850,000 bridge loan to Rubio at an interest rate of 7.5% in January 2021, with Navarro serving as the witness for the signed agreement, according to Miami-Dade records. Rubio paid off the loan that year, in July.

Benworth and the two other Florida lenders, Fountainhead SBF and Sunshine State Economic Development Corporation, wrote a letter to the SBA on Aug. 16, 2021, asking the agency to cap the amount they had to pay Womply at no more than 50% of the fee they earned on loans below $50,000.

Rubio sent his letter to the SBA 10 days later, asking the federal agency for “the clarification of guidance” about how fees would be split between lenders and companies they partnered with, adding that the “ambiguity has created confusion and costly uncertainty.” While Rubio didn’t cite the lenders by name, he wrote that he had heard about the issue from “several Florida lenders.”

Despite the outreach from Rubio, the SBA declined to change its rules, leaving in place the greater fees owed to Womply, which has since come under fire.

The lenders who contracted with Womply accused the technology company of failing to make good on its promise to vet the eligibility of small-business PPP applicants, and the technology company was accused of facilitating extensive fraud in the federal lending program in a scathing 2022 Congressional report. Womply was barred from doing business with the SBA after the report was released, a ban that is still in effect.

Womply also reached a settlement earlier this year with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, agreeing to pay $26 million in response to a complaint that it had falsely promised to obtain PPP loans for millions of small businesses that never materialized and that it would process those applications within 24 hours, which the company failed to do in numerous instances.

Broader interest in Congress

Following the Congressional report, at least two Florida politicians have pressed the SBA about Womply.

Sen. Rick Scott, a Republican, sent a letter to the SBA’s inspector general, Hannibal Ware, last year asking about his office’s investigation into Womply and other financial technology companies that had been flagged in the Congressional report.

And Rep. Aaron Bean, also a Republican, asked SBA Administrator Isabel Guzman in a March 20, 2024, hearing to commit to keeping Womply barred from doing business with the SBA.

Both Scott and Bean have received campaign contributions from Navarro in the past.

Womply has pushed back on accusations that it was responsible for massive fraud in the program, saying that it was the ultimate responsibility of the banks it partnered with to determine whether PPP applicants were legit.

The technology company has also tried to enlist its own political help in its dispute with Benworth. As the Herald previously reported, Womply paid William Manger, the SBA official who oversaw the implementation of the PPP, to testify as an expert for the company in an arbitration hearing between the two companies. Court records show that Manger was paid nearly $80,000 by Womply for his expert testimony. Manger, a political appointee in the administration of President Donald Trump, is now the mayor of Southampton Village in the Hamptons.

Correction: The article previously misstated when Sen. Marco Rubio paid off a loan from Benworth Capital. Rubio fully repaid the loan on July 28, 2021, nearly a month before he sent a letter to the U.S. Small Business Administration on the company’s behalf.