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Giuseppina “Josephine” Leone, 62, of North Wales, was sentenced to 21 months in prison and one year of supervised release on Tuesday, Oct. 22, the US Department of Justice said in a news release.
She must also pay a $50,000 fine and a $300 special assessment for pandemic program fraud, the news release states. Leone has also paid full restitution in the amount of $972,861. Her request for a sentence involving an alternative to jail time was denied by the court.
Leone and her husband owned Ristorante San Marco, an Italian restaurant in Ambler Borough located at 504 North Bethlehem Pike, according to the news release. Leone's husband wasn't named in the new release and there was no mention of charges filed against him.
The restaurant was put up for sale by Leone and her husband on Oct. 19, 2019, with an unnamed third party listed as a buyer for $1,575,000, the Department of Justice said in the news release.
Leone posted on the restaurant's Facebook page that Ristorante San Marco would be temporarily closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic on March 18, 2020, the news release states. However, the restaurant never reopened.
While the restaurant was closed, Leone submitted a fraudulent application to the federal Paycheck Protection Program for a $138,000 loan in April 2020, according to the Department of Justice. Leone claimed that the loan was for payroll and other operating expenses. It was approved, and the funds deposited later that month.
She submitted another fraudulent application under the same program in January 2021, this time requesting $120,000, which was also approved, the news release states. Those funds were deposited into the restaurant's bank account in February 2021.
Both loans were later forgiven based on fraudulent claims made by Leone, according to the news release.
Leone filed yet another fraudulent application, this time with the Restaurant Revitalization Fund, for a grant of $699,196 for restaurant operations in May 2021, the Department of Justice said. The grant was approved and the funds deposited later the same month.
The applications were filed after Ristorante San Marco had been closed on March 2020, according to the news release. Leone closed on the sale of the restaurant in June 2021. More than a year later, Leone told the federal government that the funds from the relief programs had been used for eligible purposes.
She was charged with three counts of wire fraud for making false representations in documents relating to the pandemic relief programs and pleaded guilty to those charges on Thursday, May 23.
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