Dover man pleads guilty to bank fraud for the second time in seven years

CONCORD - A Dover man pleaded guilty in federal court to committing bank fraud and violating his supervised release conditions, the U.S. Attorneys Office announced on Monday.

According to court documents and statements made in court, from December of 2019 until August of 2020, Daniel Desrochers, 48, maintained personal checking accounts at two separate banks in New Hampshire. In July Desrochers registered his catering business, Legacy Hospitality, L.L.C. (Legacy) with the New Hampshire Secretary of State. He then opened a business bank account for Legacy at a third bank.

Then from July 27 through September, Desrochers defrauded the banks by engaging in a check-kiting scheme. He would make fraudulent check deposits into the Legacy business account and one of his personal accounts using checks written on the other personal account in amounts that exceeded the amount of money in that account.

This would artificially inflate the apparent available balance in the receiving accounts. Desrochers would then withdraw funds through ATM withdrawals, debit card transactions and other electronic transfers before the financial institutions received notice that the checks were unpaid for insufficient funds.

In addition to pleading guilty to bank fraud, Desrochers also admitted that his actions violated the conditions of his supervised release for a previous felony wire fraud conviction.

Desrochers is scheduled to be sentenced on Aug. 24.