A former pizzeria owner has been sentenced to two years in prison for using more than 660,000 US dollars (£524,363) in fraudulently obtained pandemic relief funds to buy an alpaca farm.
In 2020, Dana McIntyre, 59, of Grafton, Vermont, submitted a fraudulent application for a Paycheck Protection Programme loan, prosecutors in the United States said.
He inflated information about the pizzeria’s employees and payroll expenses and falsified a tax form to try to qualify the business for a larger loan amount.
After getting the loan, McIntyre, formerly of Massachusetts, sold his pizzeria and used nearly all of the money to buy an alpaca farm in Vermont and eight alpacas, the US attorney’s office in Boston said.
He also paid for two vehicles and weekly airtime for a cryptocurrency-themed radio show he hosted, prosecutors said.
He was arrested in 2021.
“Dana McIntyre capitalised on a national catastrophe and stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from a limited pool of money set aside to help struggling businesses, to buy a farm, stock it with alpacas and make a fresh start for himself in Vermont,” Jodi Cohen, special agent in charge of the FBI, Boston Division, said in a statement.
During his sentencing on Wednesday, McIntyre was also ordered to pay the money back.
He pleaded guilty in April to four counts of wire fraud and three counts of money laundering.
His lawyers had asked for a one-year prison sentence.
In his sentencing memorandum, they said McIntyre was a single father of two children whose pizzeria was barely profitable before the pandemic.
He became susceptible to the fear and uncertainty of the times, they argued.
