CHICAGO (AP) – A federal judge has sentenced a suburban Chicago businessman to nearly five years in prison on charges that he swindled two hospitals that had sought coveted protective face masks in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Dennis W. Haggerty Jr. of Burr Ridge pleaded guilty in March to taking more than $2.5 million from hospitals in Chicago and Iowa. Prosecutors say Haggerty spent much of that money on personal credit cards and luxury cars without delivering the million N95 masks that his company promised to Northwestern Memorial Healthcare in Chicago and University of Iowa Medical Center. The judge said Monday that Haggerty took “advantage of a very bad time in this country.”