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A couple who own several restaurants in the D.C. area pleaded guilty Wednesday to failing to pay more than $1.35 million in taxes, and the husband also admitted to stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars in emergency small business relief funds during the pandemic for personal investments and vacations, prosecutors say.
Gholam “Tony” Kowkabi, 63, and Karen Kowkabi, 64, of Vienna, Virginia, have owned and operated Ristorante Piccolo in Georgetown since 1986, and also owned and operated Catch 15 and Tuscana West in D.C.
Tony Kowkabi obtained more than $1.6 million in COVID-19 relief funds from May 13, 2020 to July 27, 2021, and he falsely promised in applications and loan agreements that the funds would only be used for business-related and eligible purposes, the U.S. Attorney's Office for D.C. said.
But prosecutors said he instead used a large portion of the funds on a $550,000 waterfront condo in Ocean City, Maryland, joint venture investments for the construction of homes in Great Falls totaling more than $237,000, more than $78,500 to open Divan Restaurant in McLean, payments toward his home mortgage, more than $14,000 on vacations, more than $62,000 on personal legal expenses, more than $20,000 on home improvement and more than $5,500 on college tuition payments for his child.
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Tony Kowkabi agreed to pay nearly $740,000 in restitution and to forfeiture the waterfront condo and the two joint ventures, prosecutors said.
He also admitted to willfully attempting to evade paying more than $1.35 million in taxes by concealing assets and obscuring large sums of money he took from the businesses. Karen Kowkabi also admitted that she willfully failed to pay these taxes.
The attorney's office said the Kowkabis amassed the unpaid taxes from 1998 to 2018.
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Tony Kowkabi pleaded guilty to wire fraud and tax evasion and faces up to 25 years in prison. Karen Kowkabi pleaded guilty to five counts of willfully failing to pay taxes and faces up to five years in prison.
They are set to be sentenced this December.
