Former Boston pizzeria owner Dana McIntyre gets TWO YEAR prison sentence for spending pandemic relief funds on alpaca farm

• Previously the owner of Rasta Pasta Pizzeria in Beverly, 59-year-old Dana McIntyre had pleaded guilty wire fraud and money laundering in April
• On Wednesday, a federal judge sentenced the Vermont resident to two year and ordered him to pay nearly $680,000 to the federal government
• A resident of Grafton, Vermont, McIntyre is one of more than 3,100 Americans who have been charged with pandemic relief fraud

The former owner of pizza shop in suburban Massachusetts has been sentenced to two years in a federal penitentiary – after spending $660,000 in pandemic relief funds on a sprawling Alpaca Farm.

Previously the owner of Rasta Pasta Pizzeria in Beverly, Dana McIntyre, 59, pleaded guilty to four counts of wire fraud and three counts of money laundering in April, after fraudulently filing for Paycheck Protection Program loans to get the sum.

Feds said he used the loans for personal expenses, among them a purchase of a farm in Vermont, and eight alpacas to put inside of it. Also purchased with the stolen funds was a $14,000 pickup truck, and a vintage car worth $8,500, feds said.

On Wednesday, a federal judge sentenced the Vermont resident to two years and ordered him to pay nearly $680,000 to the federal government, the Justice Department said in a statement. 

In a phone interview following the ruling – the latest disciplinary action handed down on PPP abusers – McIntyre, who is also the host of a cryptocurrency radio show, claimed he had viewed the money as a loan that he planned to pay back. 

‘It was a pandemic, and I panicked,’ said McIntyre, speaking to The New York Times.

Utterly unrepentant, McIntyre proceeded to further justify his theft of hard-earner US tax dollars. 

‘It’s just putting some numbers and letters and pretty much whatever you want,’ he said of filling out the application for PPP loan, of which more than 11.5 million were issued.

‘Instead of putting seven employees I put 47,’ the disgraced store owner, who operated the business from his home in Vermont, explained.

‘That’s my crime. That’s the beginning of the crime. And that’s the end of the crime.’ 

Federal officials were far less understanding, telling the since-pulled pizza proprietor that he must report to prison in January to begin his time served.   

District Court Judge Denise J. Casper handed down the stark sentence, which also includes three years of supervised release, and an order to pay $679,156 in restitution and forfeiture, the US Attorney for Massachusetts said.

A resident of Grafton, Vermont, McIntyre is one of more than 3,100 Americans who have been charged with pandemic relief fraud – instances of theft that left several businesses actually in need unable to secure some of the limited relief pool.

Fed said McIntyre embarked on the fraud just days into the pandemic, in March 2020, and used the names of his adult children to apply for two additional loans for phony businesses – including one erroneously billed as ‘Dana’s Dank Pies.’

The very next month, he applied to receive unemployment, fraudulently claiming he was not working or receiving income because of the pandemic, prosecutors said.

McIntyre then submitted a fraudulent application under the Paycheck Protection Program for more than $660,000, falsifying tax forms and inflating information about the pizzeria’s payroll expenses and employees in the process.

After securing the funds in September of that year, McIntyre sold the pizza restaurant, fed said – and then used most of the ill-gotten government cash to buy the farm in Vermont. 

Set some 100 miles northwest of Boston, the farm was subsequently billed as a tourist attraction, with a website for the facility advertising the opportunity to hand feed the animals or simply stroll with them on-leash. 

The Grafton property also had a farmhouse listed on Airbnb, for which McIntrye charged nearly $90 a night.

Feds said he spent the rest on himself, including a $14,000 pickup truck and a classic 1950 Hudson 

He also made seven payments to the tune of $6,500 to the broadcaster of his ‘The Dana Crypto Show,’ and spent thousands more on home construction and kitchen remodeling, state officials in Massachusetts said Wednesday.

Another $2,000 was spent at a cosmetic spa also in The Bay State.

FBI Special Agent Jodi Cohen decried McIntyr’es actions in a Wednesday press release announcing the terms of his sentence.

‘Dana McIntyre capitalized on a national catastrophe and stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from a limited pool of money set aside to help struggling businesses,’ it read.

‘Today’s sentence holds him accountable for his selfish criminal conduct.’

McIntryre, meanwhile, told The New York Times: ‘It wasn’t this mastermind program to steal money from the government and go up and start this alpaca farm.’

He added: ‘No, it unfolded and it took on its own life form.’