Posted on 04/18/2023 8:33:20 AM PDT by raccoonradio
The former owner of a Beverly pizza place admitted last week he obtained federal Covid-19 payroll-support funds based on employees he didn't have so he could retire to the life of a gentleman alpaca farm and cryptocurrency radio host in Vermont, the US Attorney's office reports.
Dana McIntyre, 59, who still lives in Grafton, VT, despite having his woolly dreams interrupted by federal investigators, now awaits sentencing on July 12 on four counts of wire fraud and three counts of money laundering. Each of the charges carries a maximum potential sentence of 20 years in federal prison.
McIntyre is the former owner of Rasta Pasta Pizzeria in Beverly. In March 2020, McIntyre used the names of his adult children to submit two fraudulent applications to the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) for Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EIDL) for fictitious businesses. Beginning in April 2020, McIntyre submitted an application and weekly certifications in order to receive Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) benefits. In these filings, McIntyre falsely claimed that he was not working or receiving income as a result of the pandemic, while McIntyre in fact was still operating the restaurant and paying himself income from the business. By September 2020, when McIntyre sold the restaurant, he had received over $17,000 in PUA and related benefits that he was not entitled to receive.
In April 2020, McIntyre submitted a fraudulent application for a PPP loan of over $660,000 through an SBA-approved lender. In the application, McIntyre inflated information about the pizzeria’s employees and payroll expenses and falsified an official tax form in an effort to qualify the business for a larger loan amount. After receiving a PPP loan of over $660,000, McIntyre sold the pizzeria and used nearly all the funds to purchase and improve an alpaca farm in Vermont and on other personal expenses, including two vehicles and air time for his crypto-currency themed radio show.
According to an affidavit by an FBI agent on the case, McIntyre used the PPP funds - based on a claim he had 47 employees at his pizza place, rather than the three or four he actually had - to buy a farm in Grafton, VT, for $395,000. He then stocked the farm with alpacas for which he paid almost $10,000, as well as spending $7,800 to buy fencing for them and $16,555 for storage sheds, according to the affidavit. He also paid $14,000 for a 2007 GMC Sierra and $8,500 for a 1950 Hudson.
Once the farm was outfitted and operational, McIntyre sold Rasta Pasta.
There are advantages to being a pizzeria owner and an alpaca farmer, although sometimes the pepperoni tastes a little funny.
The new owners of Rasta Pasta may have
been unaware of the accusations, or didn’t
care so they kept the name It closed soon after, and another set of owners plans to open (..as Tuscan Hills Pizza).
He’s facing 80 years for stealing $17,000.
Yet, Soros DAs all over the country won’t prosecute crimes a thousand times worse.
Florida Man beat you to it to the tune of almost $4M.
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/man-purchased-lamborghini-after-receiving-39-million-ppp-loans
Dude must be a registered Republican.
I don’t think there can be more than a million or two others who have committed similar frauds.
If it was real money, the bank(s) involved would have some monitoring process set up that would sound alarms when the businesses were sold without paying off the loans.
Too bad the twenty-somethings on legislators staffs who write the legislation that allows this stuff to happen don't understand how the real world works.
He was probably at J6, too.
I suggest they go after the administrator of his money and prosecute them too. That will help put a dent in misuse of government giveaways
"Oh, she hasn't served any time?"
Californicators move to my area (Almost always from Silicon Vallye) and buy massive ranches. To keep the ag tax write offs and irrigation rights they put a few alpacas on the property. Then, they go complain to the county commission that the rich don’t pay “their fair share” and there aren’t enough bike paths.
This kind of crap went on everywhere because the uniparty couldn’t wait to spend us into oblivion with the CARES Act. Thomas Massie was one of the only one’s that tried to resist, but he got trashed for it by Trump, Republicans, Democrats, and the media.
It was way more than that. His PUA claims were what was $17,000, the loans from the fraudulent PPP were over $600,000.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.