A San Diego restaurant owner has been sentenced to 42 months in federal prison for defrauding COVID-19 relief programs and filing false tax returns, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Friday.
Leronce Suel, the majority owner of Rockstar Dough LLC and Chicken Feed LLC, operated restaurants in the San Diego area, including Streetcar Merchants in the North Park neighborhood. According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Suel conspired with others to underreport more than $1.7 million in gross receipts on Rockstar Dough’s 2020 corporate tax return and COVID-19 relief applications.
As a result of the scheme, Suel’s businesses fraudulently obtained $1,773,245 in funds from the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and the Restaurant Revitalization Fund, both created to help businesses suffering economic harm from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Suel and a co-conspirator misused the relief funds by making substantial cash withdrawals from business accounts, purchasing a home in Arkansas, and storing more than $2.4 million in cash in Suel’s bedroom.
In addition to the COVID-19 relief fraud, Suel failed to file timely tax returns for the 2018 and 2019 tax years. On the returns he did file for 2020 through 2023, he did not report income from his businesses, including large sums of withdrawn cash. In 2023, Suel also submitted false original and amended tax returns, including personal filings for 2016 and 2017 that listed fraudulent depreciable assets and fabricated business losses.
A federal jury convicted Suel in September 2024 of multiple charges, including wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, tax evasion, conspiracy to defraud the United States, filing false tax returns, and failure to file tax returns.
Following his conviction, Suel agreed to forfeit $1,466,918 in U.S. currency.
U.S. District Court Judge Ruth Bermudez Montenegro, presiding in the Southern District of California, sentenced Suel to 42 months in prison and ordered him to pay approximately $1,773,245 in restitution to the Small Business Administration. The court also ordered Suel to forfeit $1,466,918. A separate restitution hearing concerning payments to the IRS is scheduled for June 6.
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