Turncoat Lucchese soldier sentenced to 5 years in prison for running scams with new identity
Frank Capri, a former mobster turned government witness turned developer
who scammed The Banks with a Toby Keith's I Love This Bar &
Grill-branded restaurant, was sentenced last week to five years in
federal prison after pleading guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit
wire fraud and tax evasion.
According to the Cincinnati Enquirer,
Capri — whose real name is Frank Gioia, Jr. — was a former soldier for
the Lucchese Crime Family in New York and was released from prison in
1999 after agreeing to testify against other members of the crime
syndicate. He then went on to open companies under his newly
government-acquired name, Frank Capri.
Capri's scheme, which began in 2011 and continued through 2015 in
Cincinnati and around the country, involved inflating revenue
projections for his restaurants to convince developers to hand over
tenant improvement funds for the properties. Capri's company would then
reduce actual construction costs — including creating fake contractors,
acting as their own contractor, creating false documents, submitting
fake invoices — to pocket the difference between the developer's outlay
and their costs.
Twenty to 40 franchises were sold to developers, but most never opened
after lengthy, intentional construction delays. Capri had a handful of
companies, including Boomtown Entertainment and CRGE Cincinnati, which
failed to pay taxes, racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars in tax
liens and faced some $30 million in lawsuits. (That number had climbed
to $65 million in judgments by 2017.)
The Feds say between 2011 and 2015, Capri collected some $12.9 million
for Toby Keith restaurants that never sold a thing. Meanwhile, Capri
transferred millions from his company bank accounts to his personal one,
spent at least $2.7 million of the illegal funds on jewelry alone, and
underreported his income to the IRS by more than $3 million over the
course of three years.
Cincinnati did get a Toby Keith's I Love This Bar & Grill, which
opened its doors in 2012 at The Banks. But it faced a slew of lawsuits
and other issues.
In 2013, Toby Keith’s was embroiled in a lawsuit with The Banks after
the restaurant refused to pay rent for several months. The restaurant
said The Banks violated the terms of its agreement to make Toby Keith’s
the only “Country-themed” restaurant in the complex when it allowed Tin
Roof to open. This caused a temporary restaurant closure.
That case settled but the restaurant shuttered completely in July 2015 after continuing not to pay rent. After, former employees filed a lawsuit claiming the bar’s management purposely concealed the fact that the bar was closing and issued paychecks that later bounced.
According to a Cincinnati Enquirer,
"The now-defunct restaurant left behind a trail of debt, including a
judgment against the restaurant operator for more than $38,000 in unpaid
sales taxes awarded to the State of Ohio in 2014."
Capri deployed a similar scheme with Rascal Flatts-branded bars and
restaurants around the country — in many cases, deploying it on the same
developers he had just bilked. Cleveland was one of those cases when it
was announced in 2016 the city would be opening a Rascal Flatts Bar and
Grill.
Because Capri hid his ties to the new company so well, few were any the
wiser, and Capri managed to collect more than $5 million in tenant
improvement funds from developers for another batch of restaurants that
once again never opened.
The developers of the Cleveland Rascal Flatts restaurant eventually
found out they were dealing with Capri again when a man named Ray
Rostho, who owned an Arizona construction company and who was hired by
Capri to front the Rascal Flatts project in Cleveland and elsewhere,
told them at one point that they really ought to just talk to Frank
Capri if they had concerns, because it was his project.
"I said, 'You're going to have to call Frank Capri,'" Roshto told the Arizona Republic. "He was totally surprised. He shouted out, 'Frank Capri!' Then he said it again: 'Frank Capri.' And I said, 'Yeah.'"
Capri was indicted by a federal grand jury in January 2020 on 16 charges. He pleaded guilty to two of them last August.
https://www.citybeat.com/news/former-mobster-who-scammed-the-banks-with-toby-keith-restaurant-sentenced-to-five-years-in-prison-12737646?fbclid=IwAR2O1CptjztrN69ssfaJ2aibxp9s9dlkoAlLMs8TKob7budLzU2jN4wvQkM
I just read on Gangland that this Lying Rat Punk is saying he's broke I can't believe the court's are believing that meanwhile his Rat family is vacationing in Italy it's all bullshit.
ReplyDeleteGood now this Bum is a pariah wherever he lives POS
ReplyDeleteThis Rat Scumbag was double dangerous because he would have done anything to be a part of that life and then when the shit hits the fan he’ll turn on the guys he’s with. He’s just no good he’s where he belongs in jail.
ReplyDeleteYeah your right he was always an insecure POS
DeleteScumbag Rat got exposed when he got pinched 25 years ago for drugs he folded like a tent and of course like any Rat he had to justify why he Ratted so he said the mob was going to kill his father. Fat Rat couldn’t do the time he was always a fraud.
ReplyDeleteYeah he was facing life but copped out to 7 years. I know guys that were away with him in 1994 he wouldn’t come out of his cell because he was scared. Fucking Mutt.
ReplyDelete