Celebrity pizza chef Bruno DiFabio gets 30 days in prison
Through tears, a celebrity chef and TV personality Bruno DiFabio begged the judge for leniency.
As a federal judge sentenced him to 30 days in prison, DiFabio admitted to committing tax evasion as he sat in his attorney’s Southport office for the virtual hearing on Thursday.
“Everything is true,” he said. “I engaged in negligent behavior and I’m not proud of it. I did this fully knowing that I was doing something illegal and I minimized the extent of it. And I allowed it to go on as I became more successful in business and I opened up more restaurants. I did this out of arrogance and I am very sorry and I do understand the impacts of my behavior.”
DiFabio, a Ridgefield resident who became known as “Lord of the Pies” for his self-affirmed affinity as a “pizza geek,” asked Judge Victor A. Bolden to consider a variety of factors in determining his sentence, including his efforts to make amends in the five and a half years since he was charged with the federal crime.
“If there is any leniency, sir, that can be afforded to me, I shamelessly ask you to consider my mother,” DiFabio said, adding that the 73-year-old woman relies on him daily.
DiFabio’s accolades included being named world pizza champion six times, and he has owned and operated more than 30 restaurants, including one in London, over the course of 25 years, according to his attorney.
His businesses include Pinocchio Pizza in New Canaan, Wilton and Pound Ridge, N.Y.; Amore Cucina and Bar in Stamford; ReNapoli Pizza in Old Greenwich; and Amore Pizza in Scarsdale, N.Y.
DiFabio and his attorney, Joseph Martini, requested a probationary sentence. Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher W. Schmeisser requested a 30 to 37 months in jail, in line with state statute and sentencing guidelines.
Schmeisser, prosecuting the case for the government, encouraged the judge to hand down a sentence to send a message to deter this type of conduct.
“How do you sentence someone who frankly epitomizes, and frankly is a public face for many of, the small businesses in Connecticut,” Schmeisser questioned. “How will you send a message that can make it clear to those out there who are sort of similarly situated as business leaders to pay their taxes, to not pay people under the table?”
Bolden sentenced DiFabio to
30 days in prison, followed by three years of supervised released. The judge said should he violate the terms of his release, DiFabio could face up to an additional two years in prison.
“I’m sure there are those out in the public who will say, ‘My gosh, you can do this and get
30 days,’” Bolden said. “I’ll say this: I always try to make a sentence that is focused on not just the crime, but also the person in front of me.”
DiFabio said he committed the crime because he was “complacent” and “got lazy.”
“It was just a lazy thing not to have to pay attention to numbers,” he said.
DiFabio told the judge he now has a degree from Cornell University in food and beverage management and has become “laser-focused” on learning more about the food industry.
“I promise you that I would never, ever repeat the horrible mistakes that I’ve made because I have educated myself fully,” DiFabio told the judge. “You can put your trust in me.”
The judge said he weighed a variety of factors in his decision, including all the positive things others had to say on his behalf. Bolden said that indicated to him there was more to DiFabio than the crime he committed.
Bolden told DiFabio — who is known as a pillar of the community and helps with renovations and volunteers at a shelter for those experiencing homelessness in the South Norwalk community — that it was clear he had “work you still have to do,” and said he acknowledged that it could be jeopardized by a lengthier prison term.
Martini requested that Bolden recommend the federal facility in Danbury, or one closest to Connecticut.
DiFabio agreed to surrender for his prison sentence on July
12. DiFabio must also pay
$816,954 in restitution — of which he has already paid
$125,000.
Between 2013 and 2016, federal authorities said DiFabio and Steven Cioffi intentionally withheld cash from the businesses’ operating account, reducing the amount they claimed on their personal income tax returns. In 2018, DiFabio pleaded guilty to a single count of conspiracy to file false income tax returns and payroll tax returns.
Cioffi pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting the filing of a false tax return that same year. He was sentenced to 30 days in prison last month.
Authorities said the scheme was aided by James Guerra, a New York-based accountant and Idalecia Lopes Santos, a bookkeeper based in Queens Village, N.Y. All four were also aware some employees of the businesses were being paid off the books, according to federal authorities.
Santos pleaded guilty to one count of tax evasion in 2019. Guerra pleaded guilty to willful failure to collect and pay withholding taxes earlier this year.
Prior to sentencing, Martini wrote at length about DiFabio’s difficult upbringing in court filings requesting the judge impose a sentence without imprisonment. DiFabio’s parents, both of whom emigrated from Italy, met through an arranged marriage and later divorced.
“When Mr. DiFabio was about 3 years old, he and his mother went to live with his maternal grandparents in an apartment in Yonkers, where they lived with two of his mother’s siblings, who were only 12 and seven years his senior. It was there that Mr. DiFabio’s mother raised him in the basement of his grandparents’ apartment. He did not have his own room, but rather he slept on a bed that was tucked in the corner of the main living space next to the boiler room,” Martini wrote.
In his youth, DiFabio cared for his mother during her epileptic seizures. When he was a teenager, he went to live with his father in Greenwich for the better school system. After graduating from college, he opened his first pizza restaurant in New York.
“Over the course of the next 25 years, up until the investigation in these proceedings, Mr. DiFabio continued to work night and day to successfully build his reputation in the pizza business,” Martini wrote.