The first person in the country to be charged with trying to steal COVID-19 relief funds and who then faked his own suicide and went on the run for months to avoid justice, has been sentenced to nearly five years in federal prison.
Prosecutors say David Adler Staveley, 54, of Andover, Massachusetts, filed four fraudulent applications in his brother’s name for COVID-19 relief loans, claiming he operated three large restaurants and a cell-phone business with dozens of employees.
Staveley, who had two previous convictions for fraud in New Hampshire, used his brother’s name without his knowledge, prosecutors said.