An Easton man has been sentenced in federal court in Boston for using Paycheck Protection Program funds to secretly purchase a home in the name of a close relative.
According to a press release from the Massachusetts Department of Justice, 49-year-old Bill Dessaps was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Angel Kelley to three years in prison followed by three years on supervised release. Dessaps was also ordered to pay $836,800 in restitution. In September 2025, Dessaps was found guilty of two charges of wire fraud conspiracy, one count of money laundering, and one count of bank fraud. Five other people were charged in January 2024 with their involvement in the PPP fraud plot.
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Dessaps, the operator of an Abington used car dealership, is accused of conspiring with others in Massachusetts and Florida to file a fake PPP application on behalf of his company. The application they produced and submitted for Dessaps’ dealership incorrectly stated that the dealership had 40 employees and an average monthly payroll expense of $334,720. As a result of the applications, the lender made an $836,800 PPP loan to Dessaps. After collecting these monies, Dessaps paid kickbacks to one or more of the people who helped with the application.
After receiving the PPP loan, Dessaps acquired a $750,000 home in the name of a straw buyer—a close relative—because his credit score would have precluded him from obtaining a mortgage on favorable terms, and because he paid for the home with PPP funds, which the PPP bans. Dessaps, a close relative, and a real estate agent sent fraudulent mortgage application materials to a lender, including forms and fabricated records that overstated the relative’s income and assets. Dessaps deposited PPP earnings into a joint bank account held by himself and a relative to cover a percentage of the home’s costs. After a lender declined the close relative’s application for a secondary loan for the remaining funds, Dessaps and his real estate agent arranged a bogus gift of $127,500 from the real estate agent’s girlfriend to the close relative, which Dessaps wired to her. Dessaps acquired a $510,000 mortgage on the home and resided there as a result of these and other misrepresentations.
Dessaps again sought to secure a “second draw” PPP loan in March 2021 by submitting another bogus application.
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 statement. Assistant US Attorneys David M. Holcomb and Meghan C. Cleary from the Criminal Division prosecuted the case. Annapurna Balakrishna, an assistant US attorney, aided with the forfeiture.
On May 17, 2021, the Attorney General established the COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force to pool the Department of Justice’s resources in collaboration with other government agencies to improve efforts to combat and prevent pandemic fraud. The Task Force helps investigate and punish the worst offenders of fraud, both in the U.S. and abroad, and works with agencies that manage relief programs to stop fraud by improving coordination, finding resources and methods to detect fraudsters and their schemes, and sharing useful information from past enforcement actions. To learn more about the Department’s response to the epidemic, visit https://www.justice.gov/coronavirus.
Anyone with information about claims 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 using the NCDF Web Complaint Form at https://www.justice.gov/disaster-fraud/ncdf-disaster-complaint-form.
