Italian hospitality empire Cipriani is accusing two executives and a vendor of a 10-year-long fake invoice scheme in which they allegedly pocketed $3 million in kickbacks, according to a lawsuit.
The A-list chain claims former operations director Andrew Heaton approved false, inflated and duplicate invoices worth an estimated $5 million for Cipriani from Fulton Supply Hardware, and took a cut for himself, according to a lawsuit filed Thursday in Manhattan Supreme Court.
Cipriani contends Fulton issued bogus invoices since at least 2013 and that its president, Yevgeney Portnoy, and general manager, Philip Corhan, created a shell company to defraud it for services like fridge maintenance.
Former Cipriani facilities manager Franklin Palaquibay allegedly helped by placing and picking up orders to make it look like all of the products and services being invoiced were provided, the company also claimed in the lawsuit.