Marblehead man cleared of pandemic fraud charges

Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly reports the US Attorney's office in Boston has dropped charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and unlawful monetary transactions against a Marblehead man who runs a Greek Orthodox shrine and his longtime attorney.

Brian Andrew Bushell and Tracey Stockton had originally been charged with filing fraudulent applications to obtain $3.6 million in federal Covid-19 relief funds, but in a filing on Nov. 8, prosecutors asked the charges be dropped "in the interests of justice." A judge agreed to do so the next day.

In a press release issued at the time of their arrests, the US Attorney's office called him "a purported Orthodox Christian monk," but Bushell and his lawyer said the charge dropping shows he is, in fact, an Orthodox Christian monk who was relying on the word of accountants when he filed his applications.