When the coronavirus pandemic slowed enterprise at Dana L. McIntyre’s already flailing Boston-area pizzeria in early 2020, he, like tens of millions of different Americans, utilized for pandemic aid.

Mr. McIntyre obtained greater than $660,000 from the federal authorities. But as a substitute of spending it on the pizzeria, he used the vast majority of the cash to purchase a farm in Vermont, eight alpacas, a pickup truck and a classic automotive.

On Wednesday, a federal choose in Massachusetts sentenced him to 2 years in jail and ordered him to pay almost $680,000, the Justice Department said. Mr. McIntyre, 59, pleaded responsible in April to 4 counts of wire fraud and three counts of cash laundering.

“This was no momentary lapse in the fog of the pandemic,” Joshua S. Levy, the appearing U.S. lawyer for Massachusetts, mentioned in a press release. “He stole from the American taxpayers and the many small businesses which truly needed those loans to survive.”

In a cellphone interview on Wednesday night, Mr. McIntyre, who mentioned he should report back to jail in January, claimed that he had considered the cash as a mortgage that he would sometime pay again. “It was a pandemic, and I panicked,” mentioned Mr. McIntyre, who can be the host of a cryptocurrency radio present.

Mr. McIntyre is amongst greater than 3,100 Americans who’ve been charged with pandemic relief fraud as federal prosecutors scramble to recoup billions of {dollars} from individuals who falsely obtained cash from authorities packages that have been supposed to maintain the financial system afloat throughout the Covid-related shutdowns.

According to federal investigators, in March 2020, Mr. McIntyre, then the proprietor of Rasta Pasta Pizzeria in Beverly, a Boston suburb, used the names of his grownup kids to use for 2 loans for companies that didn’t exist, together with one named “Dana’s Dank Pies.”

The following month, he utilized to obtain unemployment advantages, falsely claiming that he was not working or receiving revenue on account of the pandemic, federal prosecutors mentioned. Mr. McIntyre additionally submitted a fraudulent utility below the Paycheck Protection Program for greater than $660,000, they added, saying that he had falsified tax types and inflated details about the pizzeria’s payroll bills and staff, claiming there have been 47, when he had only a few.

“It’s just putting some numbers and letters and pretty much whatever you want,” Mr. McIntyre mentioned by cellphone. “Instead of putting seven employees I put 47. That’s my crime. That’s the beginning of the crime. And that’s the end of the crime.”

In September 2020, after receiving the cash, Mr. McIntyre offered the restaurant and used a lot of the federal funds to purchase the farm in Vermont. He additionally used some on private bills, together with a $14,000 pickup truck and a 1950 Hudson value $8,500, federal investigators mentioned. He additionally made seven funds totaling $6,500 to the broadcaster of his podcast, “The Dana Crypto Show,” and spent 1000’s extra on dwelling building and kitchen transforming, in addition to greater than $2,000 at a beauty spa in Massachusetts, investigators mentioned.

In 2021, after shopping for the alpacas, Mr. McIntyre opened Houghtonville Farm, about 100 miles northwest of Boston. A website for the farm says that it gives the chance at hand feed the animals or stroll with them, on-leash, by the Saxtons River. The property additionally has a farmhouse listed on Airbnb.

Speaking Wednesday, Mr. McIntyre mentioned he had additionally used cryptocurrency funds to purchase and restore the property, which, he mentioned, he didn’t initially plan to show into an alpaca farm. “I saw an ad on Craigslist for a farm that was going out of business,” he mentioned. He maintained that he had purchased the primary two alpacas as “lawn ornaments” however that because the animals drew curiosity, he determined to create a enterprise.

“It wasn’t this mastermind program to steal money from the government and go up and start this alpaca farm,” he mentioned. “No, it unfolded and it took on its own life form.”