Easton Man Sentenced to Three Years in Prison for Wire Fraud

Summary

Federal press release datelined Boston announcing that Bill Dessaps, 49, of Easton, was sentenced by Judge Angel Kelley on Feb. 13, 2026 to three years in prison, three years of supervised release and $836,800 in restitution for using Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) funds to secretly buy a home in a close relative's name. It says he was convicted in September 2025 of two counts of wire fraud conspiracy, one count of money laundering and one count of bank fraud. According to the release, Dessaps, operator of an Abington-based used car dealership, conspired with others to submit a fraudulent PPP application, and five other individuals were charged in January 2024.

Summary drafted by a model from the document's text below and checked by script against that text before publication. It is a navigation aid, not a reading of what the document proves. Where AI is used

Full text

BOSTON – An Easton man has been sentenced in federal court in Boston for using Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) funds to secretly purchase a home in the name of a close relative.

Bill Dessaps, 49, was sentenced on Feb. 13, 2026 by U.S. District Court Judge Angel Kelley to three years in prison to be followed by three years of supervised release. Dessaps was also ordered to pay $836,800 in restitution. In September 2025, Dessaps was convicted of two counts of wire fraud conspiracy, one count of money laundering, and one count of bank fraud. In January 2024, five other individuals were charged for their alleged involvement in the PPP fraud scheme.

Dessaps – the operator of an Abington-based used car dealership – allegedly conspired with individuals in Massachusetts and Florida to submit a fraudulent PPP application on behalf of Dessaps’ dealership. The application they prepared and submitted for Dessaps’ dealership falsely stated that the dealership had 40 employees and average monthly payroll expenses of $334,720. As a result of the applications, the lender disbursed a PPP loan of $836,800 to Dessaps. After receiving these funds, Dessaps made kickback payments to one or more of the individuals who assisted with the application.

After Dessaps received the PPP loan, he purchased a $750,000 home in the name of a straw buyer—his close relative—because his credit score would have prevented him from obtaining a mortgage on favorable terms, and because he purchased the home using PPP funds, a purchase the PPP prohibits. Dessaps, his close relative, and a real estate agent submitted false mortgage application documents to a lender, including forms and forged records that inflated the relative’s income and assets. For a portion of the home costs, Dessaps transferred PPP proceeds into a joint bank account that he and his relative controlled. After a lender denied the close relative’s application for a secondary loan for the remaining funds, Dessaps and his real estate agent arranged a sham gift of $127,500 from the real estate agent’s girlfriend to the close relative, which Dessaps wired to the girlfriend. Through these and other misrepresentations, Dessaps obtained a $510,000 mortgage on the home and lived in it.

Dessaps also attempted to obtain a “Second Draw” PPP loan through another fraudulent application in March 2021.

United States Attorney Leah B. Foley and Thomas Demeo, Special Agent in Charge of the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation, Boston Field Office made the announcement. Assistant U.S. Attorneys David M. Holcomb and Meghan C. Cleary of the Criminal Division prosecuted the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Annapurna Balakrishna assisted with forfeiture.

On May 17, 2021, the Attorney General established the COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force to marshal the resources of the Department of Justice in partnership with agencies across government to enhance efforts to combat and prevent pandemic-related fraud. The Task Force bolsters efforts to investigate and prosecute the most culpable domestic and international criminal actors and assists agencies tasked with administering relief programs to prevent fraud by, among other methods, augmenting and incorporating existing coordination mechanisms, identifying resources and techniques to uncover fraudulent actors and their schemes, and sharing and harnessing information and insights gained from prior enforcement efforts. For more information on the Department’s response to the pandemic, please visit https://www.justice.gov/coronavirus .

Anyone with information about allegations of attempted fraud involving COVID-19 can report it by calling the Department of Justice’s National Center for Disaster Fraud (NCDF) Hotline at 866-720-5721 or via the NCDF Web Complaint Form at: https://www.justice.gov/disaster-fraud/ncdf-disaster-complaint-form .

File and source

File

doj-usao-ma-press-release-easton-man-sentenced-three-years-prison-wire-fraud-2026-02-18.json

Size

4,962 bytes

SHA-256

0ba04bef899ceeedbc97e90578166a63502d8ef645864e9379efd2d75f4e22d1

Our copy

doj-usao-ma-press-release-easton-man-sentenced-three-years-prison-wire-fraud-2026-02-18.json

Original

www.justice.gov