DRAMATIC ESCALATION

Massachusetts Man Faked Suicide to Avoid PPP Fraud Charges, Authorities Say

David Staveley allegedly applied for hundreds of thousands in loans for businesses that either weren’t open or weren’t his.

Federal authorities in Massachusetts have indicted a 53-year-old man who allegedly faked his own death to avoid punishment for defrauding the Paycheck Protection Program. David Staveley was charged with three counts of bank fraud, conspiracy to commit bank fraud, making false statements to influence the Small Business Administration, aggravated identity theft, and failure to appear in court. He and a co-conspirator, 52-year-old David Butziger, allegedly applied for $438,500 in PPP loans, claiming that they oversaw dozens of employees at restaurants in the Northeast and one in Berlin that were either not open or that they did not own. Staveley was arrested in early May, but authorities say that instead of awaiting his trial at home, he slashed his electronic ankle monitor, fled to Connecticut, and staged his own death by planting a suicide note in his abandoned car. From late May to July, he went on the lam using stolen license plates. U.S. Marshals apprehended him in Georgia.