A federal judge has sided with a former Oakes Farms executive, removing his companies as defendants from a multimillion-dollar fraud lawsuit.
In a motion to dismiss, filed in the Middle District of Florida on Jan. 2, Steven A. Veneziano Jr. sought to sever his companies from the civil litigation for “failure to state a claim.”
In the suit, Naples-based Oakes Farms and its affiliates — Oakes Farm Op and South Florida Produce — accused Veneziano of engaging in various fraudulent schemes to collectively steal millions of dollars from them to “fund his lavish lifestyle, which included high-dollar gambling, regular trips to Las Vegas, a multimillion-dollar house, and the purchase of a Lamborghini, among other luxuries.”…