Feds Jail Gambling NJ Pizzeria Boss for $2.7m PPP Fraud

A US District Decide has sentenced a former New Jersey pizzeria proprietor to 3 years in jail for tax evasion and PPP fraud. [Image: Shutterstock.com]

Jail meals as a substitute of pizza

US District Decide Edward Kiel has sentenced a former New Jersey pizzeria proprietor to 3 years in jail for tax evasion and Paycheck Safety Program (PPP) fraud.

Decide Keil additionally ordered Marcello DiPietro III to pay restitution of $2.7m beneath a previous sentence he obtained in Camden federal court docket.

fraudulently acquiring pandemic aid funds

The previous proprietor of Marcello’s Ristorante & Pizzeria in Evesham was convicted of fraudulently acquiring pandemic aid funds. DiPietro confessed in December 2024 to creating false purposes to the PPP between April and October 2020. 

In accordance with court docket data, DiPietro can be banned from playing after his launch from jail.

Evasion and playing

The restaurateur additionally admitted to evading revenue taxes and making false statements to PPP overseers, the US Small Enterprise Administration (SBA). 

DiPietro’s two-year time period for “making false statements to the SBA will run concurrently,” in keeping with the New Jersey Courier.

Decide Kiel’s order that DiPietro serve 5 years of his sentence on supervised launch comes with a post-custody situation that bans him from “casinos, shopping for lottery tickets, and different types of playing.”

The convicted ex-restaurateur should additionally participate in a psychological well being program that might present “playing, home violence and anger administration, or intercourse offenses-specific therapy.”

DiPietro’s $2.7m restitution order comes through a $1.7m break up to the SBA and a number of other personal lenders, and $1m going to the Inside Income Service.

In accordance with the US Lawyer’s Workplace for New Jersey, the businessman “falsely represented wages, revenues and employment ranges on the restaurant and different companies.”

Empty claims

The federal prosecutor’s workplace mentioned DiPietro obtained a $77,000 mortgage after an software described Marcello’s Ristorante & Pizzeria as an eight-employee firm that he and his spouse had operated since 2015. It turned out he owned or operated the institution “since someday in 2017.” 

DiPietro landed one other $150,000 mortgage in his spouse’s title, with IRS data later displaying the enterprise hadn’t “filed any tax returns with the IRS” nor paid wages to any staff since no less than 2014.