A suburban Chicago businessman who formerly worked in the printing/graphics industry will be going to jail for nearly five years after being sentenced by a federal judge for perpetrating a multimillion-dollar PPE fraud that involved him swindling two large university hospitals and then using the money to buy luxury cars and more.

Dennis W. Haggerty Jr. of Burr Ridge, IL, pleaded guilty in March to wire fraud and money laundering. This week, a judge in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois sentenced Haggerty to 57 months in prison.

Haggerty will also have to pay nearly $2 million in restitution to Chicago-based Northwestern Medicine (formerly Northwestern Memorial Healthcare) and the University of Iowa Medical Center. The jail-bound former businessman, who is reportedly preparing to sell his $800,000 home to help make restitution, is also facing a $1.6 million forfeiture judgement.

At the time of the fraud, Haggerty was the president of AT Media, a firm that provides digital marketing services ranging from banner ad marketing and retargeting to pay-per-click campaigns. Previously, he was the CFO of ARC, an organization in the graphics/printing field with which he no longer is affiliated.

Haggerty’s illicit activity centered on him taking about $3 million from the two hospitals for N95 masks that his spinoff company, AT Diagnostics, promised but never delivered.

Press reports indicate that Haggerty made a brief apology at his sentencing, with his attorneys saying he did not set out to commit fraud. “Did I make mistakes? 100%,” Haggerty said. “Am I a decent man? Yes, I think I am.”

At the height of N95 mask shortages at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the two hospitals ordered about 1 million masks from Haggerty.

As a deposit on the masks, the hospitals paid more than $3 million into a bank account that Haggerty falsely represented as an AT Diagnostics account, but which was totally controlled by Haggerty, according to a criminal complaint. Furthermore, the complaint alleges that Haggerty spent part of the hospitals’ funds for his own personal benefit, including purchasing two Maserati automobiles and a Land Rover SUV.

After the cash came into his account, Haggerty also allegedly used the funds to pay $60,690 to three credit card companies; transferred $50,000 into a checking account for “Car Dealer Benefits Inc.,” an account controlled by Haggerty and his spouse and a company for which Haggerty lists himself as CEO; paid a check of $20,000 to a woman identified as Haggerty’s girlfriend; spent $5,809 with Home Depot; and withdrew $6,000 via a check written to cash. 

The hospitals wanted their PPE, though. When AT Diagnostics failed to deliver the N95 masks, they sought refunds. Haggerty partially refunded one of the hospitals, but some $2.6 million that he received had not been returned at the time he was charged.