Man sentenced for using COVID funds to help buy Hillsboro golf course

A Pembroke man has been sentenced to a year in prison for misusing more than $1 million of pandemic-era funds, including using a portion to buy a 9-hole golf course in Hillsboro.

Michael Kirouac, 38, was sentenced Thursday by U.S. District Judge Joseph Laplante to 15 months in prison and one year of supervised release. Kirouac had pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud. 

The case involves money given out by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act during the early part of the pandemic. 

Officials say that Kirouac owned or controlled four companies and obtained over $1 million worth of Economic Injury Disaster Loans for the companies. Kirouac used approximately $600,000 of these funds to help purchase the Angus Lea Golf Course in Hillsboro after “he was unable to obtain financing from banks and private lenders.”

He was also charged with misusing more than a quarter-million dollars in other CARES Act funds.

The golf course had been owned by the Nivens family since it opened in 1965. A 2022 story in the Union-Leader said Kirouac and three other investors had purchased it following the family’s retirement. At the time, they owned and operated the XO Bistro in Manchester and the Main Street Grill and Bar in Pittsfield.

The Department of Veterans Affairs’ Office of the Inspector General, IRS Criminal Investigations, and SBA’s Office of the Inspector General led the investigation. The Department of Justice’s Money Laundering, Narcotics and Forfeiture Section provided valuable assistance.  Assistant U.S. Attorney Alexander Chen prosecuted the case.

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