CLEVELAND, Ohio (WOIO) – The restaurant owner who used Covid relief funds for his own personal expenses, was sentenced in Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Wednesday to four to six years in prison.
In March, Marcelo Fadul Neves pleaded guilty to:
- One count of aggravated theft
- One count of theft from a person in a protected class
- One count of grand theft
- Four counts of passing bad checks
As part of the agreement, Neves must pay a total of $969,315.67, which will be shared by the nine victims.
Neves illegally spent $800,000 in Federal Revitalization Funds and wrote bad checks to multiple people, including employees of his restaurants, for a total of over $140,000 from 2020-2024.
Neves owned Crop Bistro in Cleveland and Bistro on the Falls in Olmsted Falls…