Memorandum and Order, Motion to Suppress — United States v. Kerrissey (D. Mass., Document 71)

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Memorandum and Order by Judge Burroughs dated November 20, 2025 in United States v. Joseph Bernard Kerrissey III (District of Massachusetts, Criminal Action No. 24-cr-10106-ADB), denying the defendant's motion to suppress evidence obtained in a search warrant search of a residence. The affidavit stated probable cause to believe that Kerrissey "submitted six fraudulent Paycheck Protection Program" loan applications on behalf of three companies. The Court rejects both arguments for suppression, the lack of a timely nexus and an overbroad attachment, finding a substantial basis for probable cause and that the warrant met the Fourth Amendment's particularity requirement. It adds that even if the warrant were defective, the officers' reliance on it was objectively reasonable.

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       Case 1:24-cr-10106-ADB          Document 71       Filed 11/20/25     Page 1 of 8




                             UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
                              DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS

                                                 *
 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA                        *
                                                 *
                                                 *
                v.                               * Criminal Action No. 24-cr-10106-ADB
                                                 *
                                                 *
 JOSEPH KERRISSEY, III,                          *
                                                 *
                Defendant.                       *
                                                 *

                              MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

BURROUGHS, D.J.

       Currently before the Court is Defendant Joseph Bernard Kerrissey III’s (“Kerrissey’s”)

motion to suppress evidence obtained during a search of his residence pursuant to a search

warrant. [ECF No. 69]. For the reasons set forth below, the motion is DENIED.
          Case 1:24-cr-10106-ADB           Document 71        Filed 11/20/25      Page 2 of 8




I.        BACKGROUND

          The government initiated this wire-fraud case by sealed criminal complaint on April 5,

  2024. [ECF No. 1]. That same day, U.S. Postal Inspector Ryan T. Noonan applied for a warrant

  to search the property located at 20 Sunrise Avenue in Plymouth, Massachusetts. See [ECF No.

  69-1]. Noonan’s affidavit, which was attached to the search warrant application, [ECF No. 69-

  2], stated that he had probable cause to believe that Kerrissey “submitted six fraudulent

  Paycheck Protection Program (“PPP”) loan applications on behalf of three different companies

  that [he] owned or controlled,” thereby violating 18 U.S.C. § 1343. [Id. ¶¶ 3–4]. The allegedly

  fraudulent applications were submitted between April 2020 and April 2021. [Id. ¶ 27].

          In his affidavit, as relevant here, Noonan also attested that he had probable cause to

  believe that the property to be searched contained “fruits, evidence, and instrumentalities” of

  those offenses. [ECF No. 69-2 ¶ 81]. Specifically, the affidavit noted that Kerrissey had listed

  the property as his personal address and as the business address for all three companies, [id.

  ¶ 82]; the property was connected to the IP address from which multiple of the fraudulent PPP

  loan applications were submitted, [id. ¶ 83]; bank accounts that received funds for the PPP loans

  to the three companies were opened with the property listed as the address for the companies, [id.

  ¶ 84]; an address verification listed Kerrissey as receiving mail at the property, [id. ¶ 85]; and

  Noonan had on March 21, 2024, visited the property and identified Kerrissey as the person living

  there, [id. ¶ 86].

          As specified in Attachment B to the affidavit, the government sought “[a]ll records, in

  whatever form, and tangible objects that constitute evidence, fruits, or instrumentalities of

  violations of 18 U.S.C. [§] 1343, dating from April 2020 until the present,” including

  enumerated categories of records pertaining to Kerrissey and the three companies. [ECF No. 69-



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      3 at 1–3]. The government also sought “[a]ll computer hardware, computer software, and

      storage media reasonably believed to belong to [Kerrissey] or Buckman,” Kerrissey’s partner,

      but the government noted that the off-site searching of the electronics would be subject to the

      same temporal and subject-matter limitations as the other records sought to be seized. [Id. at 3];

      see also [ECF No. 69-2 ¶ 9].

             Magistrate Judge Bowler signed the search warrant on April 5, 2024, [ECF No. 69-1 at

      1], and the warrant was executed four days later, on April 9, 2024, [ECF No. 69-4]. On April 25,

      2024, a federal grand jury returned an indictment charging Kerrissey with three counts of wire

      fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1343. [ECF No. 17]. On October 30, 2025, Kerrissey filed the

   instant motion to suppress, [ECF No. 69], which the government opposed on November 13,

   2025, [ECF No. 70].

II.          DISCUSSION

             Kerrissey makes two arguments for suppression. First, he argues that the affidavit failed

   to establish “a timely and particularized nexus” between the alleged PPP-loan offenses and the

   property searched because the affidavit offered no basis to believe that digital records or

   proceeds of the alleged 2020–2021 PPP-loan scheme remained at the property in 2024. [ECF

   No. 69 at 6–7]. Second, he argues that the attachment describing the items to be seized was

   overbroad and violated the Fourth Amendment’s particularity requirement. [ECF No. 69 at 7–8].

             A.      Nexus

             “A warrant application must demonstrate probable cause to believe that (1) a crime has

   been committed—the ‘commission’ element, and (2) enumerated evidence of the offense will be

      found at the place to be searched—the so-called ‘nexus’ element.” United States v. Rodrigue,

      560 F.3d 29, 32–33 (1st Cir. 2009) (quoting United States v. Ribeiro, 397 F.3d 43, 48 (1st Cir.

      2005)). “In determining whether probable cause is established in the affidavit, the magistrate
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(and the reviewing court) is required to make a practical, common-sense decision whether, given

all the circumstances, there is a fair probability that contraband or evidence will be found in the

place described.” United States v. White, 766 F.2d 22, 25 (1st Cir. 1985) (first citing Illinois v.

Gates, 462 U.S. 213 (1983); and then citing United States v. Drake, 673 F.2d 15, 18 (1st Cir.

1982)); see also United States v. Faust, 853 F.3d 39, 46 (1st Cir. 2017) (“To satisfy the nexus

element, the warrant application ‘must give someone of “reasonable caution” reason to believe

that evidence of a crime will be found at the place to be searched.’” (quoting Ribeiro, 397 F.3d at

49)). A “nexus . . . need not, and often will not, rest on direct observation, but rather ‘can be

inferred from the type of crime, the nature of the items sought, the extent of an opportunity for

concealment and normal inferences as to where a criminal would hide [evidence of a crime].’”

United States v. Roman, 942 F.3d 43, 51 (1st Cir. 2019) (quoting United States v. Feliz, 182 F.3d

82, 88 (1st Cir. 1999)). Courts “consider whether the ‘totality of the circumstances’ stated in the

affidavit demonstrates probable cause to search the premises.” United States v. Tiem Trinh, 665

F.3d 1, 10 (1st Cir. 2011) (quoting United States v. Barnard, 299 F.3d 90, 93 (1st Cir. 2002)).

“A magistrate’s ‘determination of probable cause should be paid great deference.’” Gates, 462

U.S. at 236 (quoting Spinelli v. United States, 393 U.S. 410, 419 (1969)). A reviewing court’s

“duty is simply to ensure that the magistrate [judge] had a substantial basis for . . . conclud[ing]

that probable cause existed.” United States v. Bregu, 948 F.3d 408, 417 (1st Cir. 2020) (citation

modified).

       Here, the magistrate judge had a substantial basis for concluding that probable cause

existed to believe that evidence of the alleged wire fraud would be found at the property.

Specifically, the affidavit contained information linking Kerrissey’s three businesses to the

property, including the use of the property as a business address for the businesses and the



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submission of PPP loan applications from the property. [ECF No. 69-2 ¶¶ 82–86]. To be sure, a

considerable amount of time had passed between Kerrissey’s alleged submission of the loan

applications in 2020–2021 and the warrant application in 2024. But assessing the staleness of an

affidavit is not a matter of “counting the number of days between the events described in the

affidavit and a warrant’s issuance, as a merchant would beads on an abacus,” Tiem Trinh, 665

F.3d at 13; rather, the Court considers “various factors, including ‘the nature of the information,

the nature and characteristics of the suspected criminal activity, and the likely endurance of the

information’ in assessing the information’s ripeness,” id. (quoting United States v. Morales-

Aldahondo, 524 F.3d 115, 119 (1st Cir. 2008)). The warrant here “primarily sought business

records,” which, as “repositories of historical facts . . . are largely immune from claims of

staleness.” United States v. Floyd, 740 F.3d 22, 34 (1st Cir. 2014). Based on the totality of the

information contained in the affidavit, there was probable cause to believe that the enumerated

evidence of the alleged wire fraud would be found at Kerrissey’s residence, even several years

after the submission of the allegedly fraudulent loan applications.

           B.      Particularity

       The Fourth Amendment requires that warrants “particularly describ[e] the place to be

searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” U.S. Const. amend. IV. “The particularity

requirement demands that a valid warrant: (1) must supply enough information to guide and

control the executing agent’s judgment in selecting where to search and what to seize, and (2)

cannot be too broad in the sense that it includes items that should not be seized.” United States

v. Lindsey, 3 F.4th 32, 40 (1st Cir. 2021) (quoting United States v. Kuc, 737 F.3d 129, 133 (1st




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Cir. 2013)). The purpose of this requirement “is to prevent wide-ranging general searches by the

police.” Id. (quoting United States v. Moss, 936 F.3d 52, 58 (1st Cir. 2019)).

       The warrant here, and, specifically, the attachment describing the items to be seized,

satisfied the Fourth Amendment’s particularity requirement. Kerrissey argues, first, that the

attachment was overbroad because it authorized the seizure of “‘all records, in whatever form’

for multiple businesses without any temporal limitation.” [ECF No. 69 at 7]. This argument

ignores the plain language of the warrant, which limited the records to be seized to violations of

a certain statute during a defined time period, that is “evidence, fruits, or instrumentalities of

violations of 18 U.S.C. [§] 1343” from “April 2020 until the present.” [ECF No. 69-3 at 1–3].

Contrary to Kerrissey’s argument, the Court must read this “broad first clause, which identifie[d]

the criminal offense[] that the target evidence was expected to establish” in light of the more

“detailed and particularized” subclauses that follow, whose particularity Kerrissey does not

specifically challenge. Kuc, 737 F.3d at 133; see also United States v. Falon, 959 F.2d 1143,

1148 (1st Cir. 1992) (noting that “when an individual’s allegedly fraudulent business activities

are centered in his home . . . the broad categories of items that may be seized . . . must be

sufficiently linked to the alleged criminal activity so as to distinguish them from innocent,

personal materials”); United States v. Klyushin, 643 F. Supp. 3d 261, 270 (D. Mass. 2022)

(collecting decisions upholding warrants of similar structure against particularity challenges).

       Kerrissey also takes issue with the attachment’s authorization to seize “all computer

hardware, computer software, and storage media reasonably believed to belong to Kerrissey or

Buckman,” calling this a “boundless grant of authority.” [ECF No. 69 at 8]. This argument,

however, ignores the very next sentence of the attachment, which subjects the off-site searching

of these items to the same temporal and subject-matter limitations as the searches of the other



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items. [ECF No. 69-3 at 3]; see also Kuc, 737 F.3d at 133 (“[A] warrant’s language must be read

in context.”); Klyushin, 643 F. Supp. 3d at 270 (upholding warrants that “directed Apple to

broadly turn over to the government an iCloud account” but “only authorized the government to

search for specific categories of information from that seized account”). Kerrissey’s argument

that the warrant was overbroad fails.

           C.      Good Faith Exception

       Even when a search warrant is defective, the Supreme Court has held that suppression is

not required if law enforcement “acting with objective good faith has obtained a search warrant

from a judge or magistrate and acted within its scope.” United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 920

(1984). “[T]he officer’s reliance on the magistrate’s probable-cause determination and on the

technical sufficiency of the warrant he issues must be objectively reasonable.” Id. at 922. The

government bears the burden of demonstrating the affiant’s good faith. See United States v.

Vigeant, 176 F.3d 565, 572 (1st Cir. 1999).

       Kerrissey argues that the good-faith exception does not apply because the warrant’s

“staleness” and “sweeping overbreadth” were evident on its face. [ECF No. 69 at 8]. The

government counters that “[t]he agents provided a detailed affidavit to a magistrate judge, the

warrant included subject matter and temporal limitations on what could be searched, and the

agents acted in accordance with the parameters of the warrant issued.” [ECF No. 70 at 7].

       The Court agrees with the government. Even if the magistrate judge’s finding of

probable cause had been improper, the affidavit supporting the warrant, which provided robust

grounds to believe that evidence of the offense would be found at the property, was not “so

lacking in indicia of probable cause as to render official belief in its existence entirely

unreasonable.” Leon, 468 U.S. at 923 (quoting Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. 590, 610–11 (1975)

(Powell, J., concurring in part)). Similarly, even if the warrant had been overbroad, it was not
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   “so facially deficient . . . in failing to particularize . . . the things to be seized . . . that the

   executing officers [could not] reasonably presume it to be valid.” Id.; cf. Groh v. Ramirez, 540

   U.S. 551, 557 (2005) (finding warrant “plainly invalid . . . ‘because it provided no description of

   the type of evidence sought’”). Accordingly, even assuming that the warrant violated the Fourth

   Amendment, the officers’ reliance on it was objectively reasonable.

III.       CONCLUSION

           For the reasons set forth above, Kerrissey’s motion to suppress evidence from the search

   of 20 Sunrise Avenue in Plymouth, Massachusetts, [ECF No. 69], is DENIED.

           SO ORDERED.

   November 20, 2025                                                   /s/ Allison D. Burroughs
                                                                       ALLISON D. BURROUGHS
                                                                       U.S. DISTRICT JUDGE




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