Salt Lake restaurant owner defrauds $1.88 million from COVID relief funds

Photo: U.S. District Court in Utah. Photo courtesy of the District of Utah.

SALT LAKE CITY – Giuseppe Mirenda, owner of the popular Italian restaurant Antica Sicilia in Salt Lake City, has recently been sentenced to twelve months and one day imprisonment for defrauding the COVID-19 relief program.

Sentenced by the U.S. District Court in Utah, Mirenda pleaded guilty in February of this year to two counts of conversion of government property. Mirenda defrauded $1.88 million from the relief program.

In addition to his term of imprisonment, Mirenda was sentenced to three years’ supervised release, and a fine of $250,000.

According to court documents and statements made during the change of plea hearing, Mirenda, a co-owner of five Utah restaurants and Sicilia Restaurant Management, fraudulently applied for and signed agreements for six Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EIDL) between March 2020 and June 2020.

In 2021, Mirenda sought an additional $520,000 in EIDL loans, but these applications were denied. The EIDL loans, provided under the CARES Act, were intended to assist small businesses affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mirenda falsely claimed that the loan proceeds would be used exclusively as working capital to address pandemic-related economic harm, but he instead used the funds for personal gain. Additionally, he misrepresented the citizenship status of his co-owners to improperly secure the loans.

In total, Mirenda unlawfully obtained $1,889,400 in EIDL loan funds. Within less than a year, he used over $1.1 million of these fraudulent funds to purchase properties in West Jordan, Utah, and Las Vegas, Nevada.

Additionally, Mirenda misused at least $81,781 of the EIDL funds to buy luxury vehicles, including a BMW M3 and a Jaguar F-PACE, as well as $39,000 worth of cryptocurrency.

Mirenda repaid about $680,000 of the EIDL funds. The United States also recovered approximately $1,251,469.29 from the seizure of the profits made from the forced sale of the two homes in Utah and Nevada.

United States Attorney Trina A. Higgins for the District of Utah made the announcement, and the Utah Federal COVID-19 Fraud Strike Force investigated the case.