Was the alpaca farm worth two years in a Federal pen?

For some reason, I'm always fascinated by embezzlers and swindlers. I don't know if "enjoy" is the right word, but I'm always interested to read about folks who steal from their employers (or the volunteer organizations they run) to buy pricey cars and Pandora bracelets, to pay for Burt Bacharach to sing at their brother's wedding, to make that longed for trip to Fiji. Always intrigued by folks who rip off their investors so that they can live out their big old dreams on somebody else's dime. Then there are those who ginned up fake PPP claims to fund their flashy lifestyles: cars, jewelry, furs, lux travel.

Maybe we all have a little larceny in our hearts. Maybe mine is at the root of my fascination. But most of us just channel that larceny into thieving vicariously through the antics of actual embezzlers and swindlers. That and buying lottery tickets so we can spend a few days fantasizing what we'd do with our randomly-gotten gains if we won a big payoff. (For the record, my spend would not be flashy lifestyle related. But I'd still have fun. And I'd buy Eileen Fisher that wasn't on the last year rack at TJ Maxx.) 

There is, of course, something pretty pedestrian about how swindlers spend their swindles, how grifters spend their grifts, how embezzles spend the dollars embezzled. The lists are invariably the same. C.f., flashy cars, pricey real estate, etc. But there's often a bit of an room for individual quirks, the personal touch, the lifelong "if I only had he money" longings. That mention of the Burt Bacharach concert is there because a number of years ago, a local Massachusetts embezzler spent some of her ill-gotten gains on the big event concert for her brother. She also, as I recall, bought herself a life-sized statue of Al Capone. (Who said irony is dead.)

The latest topic-related story I've come across is about a local guy - he owned a pizza shop on Boston's North Shore - who stole over half a million in COVID-19 relief funds, and blew most of it to buy an alpaca farm in Vermont. 

The exact amount was $660K, and how much more fun would it have been if the amount had actually been $666K?

That's a quibble. Not up for quibble (or sympathy) is the sentence. 

Dana L. McIntyre, 59, the former owner of Rasta Pasta Pizzeria, was sentenced by US District Court Judge Denise J. Casper to two years in prison and three years of supervised release. He was also ordered to pay $679,156 in restitution and forfeiture...

After McIntyre received the funds, McIntyre sold the pizzeria and used the money “to purchase a farm in Vermont, as well as eight alpacas, and other personal expenses, including two vehicles and airtime for his crypto-currency themed radio show,” prosecutors said. (Source: Boston Globe)

McIntyre has bleated out - do llamas bleat? - a bit of a mea culpa:

In a phone interview on Wednesday evening, Mr. McIntyre, who said he must report to prison in January, claimed that he had viewed the money as a loan that he would someday pay back. “It was a pandemic, and I panicked,” said Mr. McIntyre, who is also the host of a cryptocurrency radio show. (Source: NY Times)

Is anyone surprised that the sort of guy who'd defraud the government to buy an alpaca farm would also be involved in crypto?

And, by the way, this wasn't exactly a temporary, one-time moment of panic. 

He applied for loans (in the names of his adult children) in non-existent businesses. Then there was asking for PPP protection for his pizza joint, stating that he had 47 employees, rather than the actual number which was 17. 

“It’s just putting some numbers and letters and pretty much whatever you want,” Mr. McIntyre said by phone. “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.”

The beginning and end of the crime?  Sounds like McIntyre is trying to minimize, to pooh-pooh what he did. All I did was make a measly little number change. Coulda been a brain fart. Coulda been an honest mistake. Coulda happened to anyone.

Applying for aid for fake companies - and dragging your kids into it by using their names - suggests to me that fudging the employee numbers wasn't exactly the alpha and omega of this criming.

Anyway, now McIntyre is staring down two years in a Federal pen, not to be confused with an alpaca pen. And a hefty fine. (Which I wish had been for $666,666.)

What. A. Jerk.