Top chef charged for culinary caper
Boro cook indicted for allegedly stealing thousands from Bay Ridge restaurateurs
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BY JULIANNE MCSHANE
This chef is cooked.
A Bay Ridge cook once
lauded as one of the borough’s
top chefs faces up to seven
years in prison for allegedly
posing as a phony consultant
and stealing thousands from
the owners of a restaurant in
his neighborhood.
Prosecutors slapped
36-year-old Vincent Tropepe
— whom Edible Magazine
once dubbed the “Americanborn
Gordon Ramsay” — with
charges including second-degree
criminal possession of a
forged instrument, fi rst-degree
falsifying business records,
and third-degree grand larceny
as part of a 41–count indictment,
Brooklyn’s top prosecutor
announced on Feb. 22.
“The victims in this case
worked hard to make their
restaurant a success and this
defendant, claiming he could
help them, allegedly lied and
stole their hard-earned money
instead,” said Eric Gonzalez.
Tropepe — who previously
worked as a personal chef for
celebrities including Regis
Philbin, P. Diddy, and former
President Clinton — scammed
the owners of Fifth Avenue’s
Yemen Café out of more than
$14,000 while working as a socalled
consultant, by creating
fake violations and fabricating
the accompanying fi nes,
according to prosecutors.
Prosecutors alleged the defendant
attempted to win his
victims’ trust by claiming he
fought to lower the fi nes with
offi cials in the Offi ce of Administrative
Trials and Hearings,
which determines fi nancial
penalties for violations
doled out by the Department
of Health and other city agencies.
The chef began his alleged
scheme last July, when he demanded
the restaurant owners
pay a $2,570 fi ne issued by the
offi ce, according to the district
attorney. And a month later,
he asked the owners to reimburse
him for $11,650, money
Tropepe claimed he paid to
the offi ce on the victims’ behalf
to cover another fi ne, alleged
Gonzalez, who said the
defendant used fraudulent paperwork
outlining the fi nes to
support his bogus claims.
The restaurateurs, who
also own a Downtown location
of their café, later contacted
the Offi ce of Administrative
Trials and Hearings with suspicions
about the fi nes’ legitimacy.
And agency offi cials
deemed Tropepe’s fi nancial
penalties and their supporting
documents fake, before reporting
the incident to the city’s
Department of Investigation,
according to the district attorney.
Tropepe, meanwhile, allegedly
tried to dupe his victims
once more, presenting them
with more fraudulent paperwork
and fake fi nes last December,
which they did not
pay, prosecutors said.
City records show the eatery’s
owners paid $1,000 for
two 2014 violations, for construction
work and a failure
to maintain the building’s
code. And the restaurant has
two open violations with the
Department of Buildings, for
a low-pressure boiler and construction
work dating back to
2009, according to the records.
Tropepe started his consulting
scheme in 2014, to fi ght
what he called the city’s unfair
health-codes and fi nes,
which he called a burden on
small-business owners.
“I feel that there is no foundation
to what is being written
during some inspections,”
Tropepe told this newspaper
at the time.
The chef also claimed he
helped dismiss $300,000 worth
of fi nes issued to local restaurateurs
in 2013, adding that
he additionally helped secure
about $110,000 in refunds to
business owners.
Tropepe, who owned and
operated the French bistro
Saint Germain in Bay Ridge
between 2011 and 2012, is due
back in court on April 17, the
district attorney said.
IN HOT WATER: Chef Vincent Tropepe, seen here showing off pastries at
the opening of his consulting business. File photo by Elizabeth Graham
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