HSI Utah Investigation Ends With Restaurant Owner Sentenced to Federal Prison for Fraud
Popular Italian-restaurant owner stole $1.88M in COVID relief funds
SALT LAKE CITY — A Utah restaurant owner who obtained over $1.88 million by defrauding the COVID-19 relief program was sentenced Aug. 22 to 12 months and one day of imprisonment.
Giuseppe Mirenda, 29, of Salt Lake City, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Howard C. Nelson Jr. after pleading guilty in February 2024 to two counts of conversion of government property. In addition to his term of imprisonment, Mirenda was sentenced to three years of supervised release and a fine of $250,000.
"Defrauding hardworking taxpayers of monies meant to support those hardest hit by the COVID pandemic is utterly reprehensible," said Homeland Security Investigations Las Vegas Special Agent in Charge Chris Miller. "HSI is committed to the efforts of this task force and holding fraudsters fully accountable for their actions."
According to court documents and statements made at 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 between March 2020 and June 2020. In 2021, Mirenda also applied for another $520,000 in EIDL loans, but those loans were denied. Under the coronavirus relief bill, EIDL loans were for small businesses struggling from the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the EIDL loan applications, Mirenda represented and agreed that the loan proceeds would be used solely as working capital to alleviate economic injury caused by the pandemic, when in fact he used the loan money for his own personal benefit. Mirenda also misrepresented the citizenship status of his co-owners to improperly obtain the loans.
In total, Mirenda unlawfully obtained $1,889,400 in loan funds. In less than a year, he used over $1.1 million of the fraudulently obtained funds to buy houses in West Jordan, Utah, and Las Vegas, Nevada. Mirenda also misused at least another $81,781 in loan funds to buy luxury cars, including a BMW M3 and a Jaguar F-PACE, and $39,000 in cryptocurrency.
Mirenda repaid about $680,000 of the 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.
U.S. Attorney Trina A. Higgins for the District of Utah made the announcement.
The Utah Federal COVID-19 Fraud Strike Force is investigating the case, which includes HSI, the FBI, the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Office of Inspector General, the Department of Defense, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Inspector General and the U.S. Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. The public is encouraged to share information about the abuse of the Paycheck Protection Program or other SBA programs by submitting a complaint.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Todd C. Bouton of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Utah prosecuted the case.
On May 17, 2021, the Attorney General established the COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force to marshal the resources of the Department of Justice in partnership with agencies across government to enhance efforts to combat and prevent pandemic-related fraud. The Task Force bolsters efforts to investigate and prosecute the most culpable domestic and international criminal actors and assists agencies tasked with administering relief programs to prevent fraud by augmenting and incorporating existing coordination mechanisms, identifying resources and techniques to uncover fraudulent actors and their schemes, and sharing and harnessing information and insights gained from prior enforcement efforts. For more information on the department’s response to the pandemic, please visit https://www.justice.gov/coronavirus and https://www.justice.gov/coronavirus/combatingfraud.
Anyone with information about allegations of attempted fraud involving COVID-19 can report it by calling the HSI Tip Line at 877-4-HSI-TIP or via e-mail at covid19fraud@dhs.gov.
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About HSI
HSI is the principal investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), responsible for investigating transnational crime and threats, specifically those criminal organizations that exploit the global infrastructure through which international trade, travel and finance move. HSI’s workforce consists of over 10,000 employees, assigned to 235 offices within the United States and 93 overseas locations in 56 countries. HSI's international presence represents DHS’s largest investigative law enforcement presence abroad and one of the largest international footprints in U.S. law enforcement.