The former owner of a successful Harlem restaurant whose shenanigans opened the door to the feds’ now-closed probe into Mayor Bill de Blasio begged for leniency at his sentencing Friday by casting blame on Jona Rechnitz, a de Blasio donor-turned-government cooperator.
New York – A former Manhattan restaurant owner, charged in a case that emerged from a federal corruption investigation of the New York Police Department, has pleaded guilty to running a Ponzi scheme after reaching a deal with federal prosecutors.
A former Manhattan restaurant owner has been arrested on charges that he ran a $12 million Ponzi scheme, prosecutors said on Friday, in a case that a source said was linked to an ongoing corruption probe involving the New York Police Department.