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The country’s first person accused of fraudulently seeking commercial loans in the event of a pandemic has been sentenced to more than four years in federal prison, authorities say.
David Adler Staveley, 54, of Andover, Mass., Faked his suicide to escape arrest after prosecutors said he tried to defraud the government with $ 543,000 in relief funds for coronaviruses.
Staveley and his co-conspirator David Andrew Butziger falsely claimed they own four businesses, including three restaurants, according to a press release from the Rhode Island District Attorney’s Office.
The two men applied for the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan through a Rhode Island bank and falsely claimed their businesses had “a large monthly payroll,” officials said.
Staveley and Butziger have asked for over $ 438,000 for restaurants and just over $ 105,000 for another company called Dock Wireless.
“In fact, they didn’t own the businesses,” prosecutors said.
Court documents say police in Berlin, Massachusetts were made aware of the scheme by someone who said they had access to emails between Staveley and Butziger discussing the process for applying for PPP loans.
The FBI has been contacted and federal investigators have interviewed four people, according to Butziger, full-time employees of Dock Wireless. They all said they knew Butziger in their personal lives but had never worked for the company, according to the documents.
The restaurants were closed when Staveley and Butziger applied for the loans and remained closed.
The men were arrested in May 2020. Staveley and Butziger, 53, of Warwick, Rhode Island, were returned to house arrest with electronic surveillance. Federal officials said about three weeks after his release, Staveley removed his device, faked his suicide and fled.
“Staveley left suicide notes with associates and left his wallet in his unlocked car which he parked along the ocean in Massachusetts,” the press release read. “Further investigation determined that between May 26 and July 23, 2020, Staveley (…) visited various states using false identities and stolen license plates.”
American marshals eventually tracked him down and arrested him in Alpharetta, Georgia, in June 2020.
After Staveley’s release from prison, he will be under three years of federal supervised release. Butziger is expected to be sentenced next month. Lawyers for Staveley and Butziger did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday.
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