The owners of the Georgetown restaurant Ristorante Piccolo have been sentenced for tax offenses of over $1 million and theft of thousands of COVID-19 relief funds spent on personal investments.
Gholam “Tony” Kowkabi, 63, was sentenced to 57 months in prison and his wife, Karen Kowkabi, 64, was sentenced to 24 months of probation, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for D.C.
The couple, of Vienna, Virginia, pleaded guilty in court in August of this year to tax evasion for their failure to pay $1.35 million in taxes and for stealing $738,000 from the emergency COVID-19 small business relief funds the restaurant received in 2020.
According to prosecutors, Gholam Kowkabi admitted spending the money on a waterfront condo in Ocean City, Maryland, personal investments and legal expenses, family vacations, college tuition for their child and other personal expenses.
As laid out in a news release, the Kowkabis amassed an unpaid tax balance of over $1.35 million between 1998 — two years after they opened Ristorante Piccolo — to 2018. Gholam admitted concealing assets and “obscuring large sums of money” by purchasing property and hiding them by using business bank accounts.
During the pandemic, Gholam obtained more than $1.6 million in COVID-19 relief funds for small businesses, of which a portion was used for “unauthorized purposes and for his own personal enrichment.” The purchase of the waterfront condo, investments into the construction of two homes in Great Falls and the opening of a second restaurant in McLean were among some of the unauthorized purchases.
They are ordered to jointly repay the $1.35 million in restitution to the IRS, as well as $738,000 in stolen small business relief funds.
In June of this year, a two-alarm fire broke out at the Ristorante Piccolo restaurant, causing the roof to collapse. Two firefighters suffered minor injuries while battling the flames that lasted nearly four hours.
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story misstated the sentences received by the Kowkabis. The story has been corrected and updated.
