Crop Bistro owner Marcelo Fadul Neves indicted in $846K theft of COVID relief funding
[In the player above, watch FOX 8 News coverage on the Restaurant Revitalization Fund from 2021.]
CLEVELAND (WJW) — The owner of a shuttered Ohio City restaurant spent more than $800,000 in pandemic business relief funds from the federal government on his personal expenses and debts, according to the Cuyahoga County prosecutor.
A county grand jury handed up an indictment charging the owner of Crop Bistro & Bar, Marcelo Fadul Neves, 59, of Westlake, with 15 felony counts, including aggravated theft, telecommunications fraud, tampering with records, grand theft and passing bad checks, according to a Wednesday news release.
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Neves in 2021 applied for relief through the Restaurant Revitalization funding, administered by the U.S. Small Business Administration to help struggling restaurants keep their doors open during the COVID-19 pandemic, and received $846,720 for his business.
But Crop Bistro, along Lorain Avenue in Cleveland's Ohio City neighborhood, had already closed, according to prosecutors.
In the restaurant's last Facebook post in December 2020, operators said it would be closing for two weeks 'due to unforeseeable circumstances.'
Neves instead used the funding for personal expenses, to pay off debts and to buy another restaurant in Olmsted Falls, called Bistro on the Falls, which was also later closed, according to prosecutors.
Separate from the federal funding theft, he also allegedly wrote bad checks to multiple people, including employees, totaling more than $140,000. Several of the bounced checks, totaling $105,000, were made out to DeWitt's Jewelry, according to his indictment.
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Neves was arrested Tuesday, March 11, by agents with the U.S. Secret Service Money Laundering Task Force, with help from Westlake police, according to the release.
He is set for arraignment on Thursday, March 13, court records show.
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