Pulling the strings?
Mafia soldier behind failure of Rascal Flatts restaurants
Frank Capri’s voice vibrates menace. His words tumble out of the phone Brooklyn-tough, a low, clipped mix of obscenity and intimidation. ❚ “Call (that) f--ker tomorrow and go, ‘You know something, you lied straight to my face, you son of a bitch . ... I’m going to pull out of the whole f--king job . ... You trying to do that to me? ... You go get another f--king contractor.’ ” ❚ This is Capri doing business.
In this case, business means getting as much money as he can out of an unfinished Rascal Flatts restaurant in Cleveland before the project collapses.
Capri is not publicly connected to the restaurant. He works behind the scenes from his Arizona home, directing contractors who serve as his
fronts on developments across the country.
Another call. This time, Capri brushes off a state investigation into possible contract violations at a Rascal Flatts project in Gainesville, Florida.
“So what’s the investigation? There’s nothing there. It’s all talk.
It’s all talk. And it’s all hype. ‘Ooh, ooh, there must be something going on. There must be something going on.’ There’s nothing going on. Stupid s--t.”
More calls, more demands, more cajoling. All recorded by one of
Capri’s contractors in 2018. Much of the talk is about money as Capri focuses on squeezing developers for payments — mobilization fees, or “draws,” as Capri calls them. Upfront cash meant to pay for construction of restaurants bearing the name of the country band Rascal Flatts.
Projects were planned in Hollywood; Pittsburgh; Chicago; Des Moines, Iowa; Boise, Idaho; Orlando, Florida; St. Louis; and a dozen other cities.
Only one restaurant opened. It closed about a year later. The others never were completed.
Money meant to pay for construction? Gone. Part of a plan apparently orchestrated by a Mob turncoat who walked out of prison and into a new life years ago, courtesy of the Federal Witness Protection Program.
Toby Keith chain also ruined
It’s not likely developers looking to add Rascal Flatts restaurants to their lineup of urban eateries would sign a contract with Frank Capri.
A simple Google search would show them Capri was behind the epic failure of another country-themed restaurant chain: Toby Keith’s I Love This Bar and Grill.
Capri’s Phoenix companies built 20 Toby Keith restaurants beginning in 2009 and announced plans to build 20 more that never opened. By 2015, all but one had closed. Allegations of fraud and theft followed.
In lawsuits, developers claimed he stiffed contractors, broke lease agreements and took millions of dollars meant to pay for construction.
Capri’s name does not appear on corporate documents tied to the Rascal Flatts restaurants. He isn’t listed on business licenses, liquor applications or building permits filed in cities across the county.
But an investigation by The Arizona Republic found Capri controlled key aspects of the projects before they, too, collapsed.
Capri relied on his girlfriend and her business associate to front the restaurants.
Phone recordings, text messages, documents and interviews show Capri oversaw hiring, firing, employee payments, permits, construction schedules and collection of development fees.
“Rascal Flatts, this was all Frank,” said Ray Roshto, owner of Ussher Construction in Glendale, Arizona. “He handled all the trades (subcontractors) and all the money.”
Roshto said Capri hired him in 2017 to launch Rascal Flatts projects in five cities and another restaurant in a sixth. Roshto said Capri wanted his name kept off contracts and agreed to pay Roshto through a company called RF Investments.
“Frank said, ‘Oh, no. I can’t have my name on the contract because I am not the owner,’ ” Roshto said.
Capri declined interview requests. He did not respond to an email, a phone message or a list of questions delivered to his Scottsdale lawyer Feb. 25. He hung up when reached by phone.
A mobster’s violent history
Frank Capri didn’t exist until 1999, when the federal government gave him his name, Social Security number and a birthday in 1967.
He was born Frank Gioia Jr., a thirdgeneration mobster. He rose to become a “made man” in New York City’s notorious Lucchese Crime Family. Mafia historians call him one of the most important government witnesses to testify against the Mob.
His cooperation with law enforcement led to the conviction of more than 70 Mafia members – soldiers, captains, capos and bosses – in the 1990s and 2000s. He helped clear several unsolved murders.
In exchange for his cooperation, federal prosecutors erased Gioia’s past as a murderer, drug dealer, gun runner and leg breaker.
They rewarded him with a new identity and enrolled him in the Federal Witness Protection Program.
In 2017, The Republic documented Capri’s transition from gangster to witness to businessman.
Capri maintains stories about his past were “false and defamatory.” In a letter to the newspaper in 2017, he denied pocketing development money and described the Toby Keith closures as nothing “other than the product of a business failure.”
Capri emerged in Arizona in the early 2000s. He used his government-provided identity to cast himself as a real estate investor and restaurateur.
When the bottom fell out of the housing market in 2008, Capri positioned himself as a commercial developer. He started small, soliciting mall owners in Chandler and Mesa on a chain of indoor playgrounds.
Those early projects proved to be Capri’s template for failure. He offered mall owners long-term leases in exchange for upfront cash, then walked away.
Cue the country music. Capri made similar deals for Toby Keith restaurants. Some closed within months of opening. Some never opened. Leases were broken, which meant developers weren’t repaid. Capri’s companies were evicted; restaurants were seized.
Keith had no ownership interest in the restaurants; he only collected money on naming rights. He has not responded to multiple requests for comment.
Capri was sued dozens of times. By 2017, judges in cities across the country ordered him or his companies to pay at least $65 million in civil judgments.
The federal authorities who put Capri into the Federal Witness Protection Program won’t talk about the string of financial failures and lawsuits left in his wake.
The FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice have declined for years to answer questions about Capri and neither will confirm nor deny the existence of any investigations.
A criminal case filed in January in Arizona U.S. District Court and initially sealed from public view could signal something is about to change.
Rascal Flatts pulls the plug
Rascal Flatts has had enough. The band yanked its licensing agreement with RF Restaurants, the Las Vegasbased company registered in the names of Capri’s girlfriend and her business associate.
“The band terminated the license agreement and is no longer in business with this company or Mr. Capri,” band spokeswoman Kristie Sheppard Sloan said in a statement to The Republic.
“Rascal Flatts licensed use of their name, image and logo to the restaurant developer and had nothing to do with the construction or build out plans for these restaurants,” she said. “The use of the Rascal Flatts name in association with restaurants owned by RF IP, LLC or Frank Capri is no longer authorized.”
In a post Jan. 11 on Twitter, the band told fans it wanted to clear up any confusion about its involvement in the restaurants.
“Because we know you have been looking forward to enjoying our themed restaurants, we wanted to let you know that this project is no longer happening,” the band tweeted.
RF Restaurants opened its first Rascal Flatts restaurant in Stamford, Connecticut, in August 2017. It offered a Southern-fried menu and a rockabilly roster of country concerts.
RF Restaurants filed paperwork, including building applications, to open as many as 17 Rascal Flatts restaurants from Hawaii to Florida.
Stamford was the company’s first and last Rascal Flatts restaurant. It stayed open about a year before closing in August 2018 amid allegations that RF Restaurants failed to pay more than $1.1 million in rent.
Lawsuits followed the shutdown of RF Restaurants’ projects in Gainesville, Florida, Pittsburgh and Hollywood.
In charge – on paper
On paper, RF Restaurants had no connection to Capri.
RF managers Tawny Costa and Chris Burka worked together in the Phoenixarea restaurant business. They had credentials that would appeal to riskaverse developers looking for long-term tenants to anchor malls.
Costa and Burka appeared to bring culinary and business savvy to the table. They clearly passed muster with Rascal Flatts’ business managers, whose job is to protect the interests of the three-man band, which has an estimated net worth of $150 million.
Costa and Burka were partners in a Tempe, Arizona, restaurant called Blasted Barley.
Costa ran restaurants in Scottsdale, Arizona’s tony Grayhawk community, San Diego’s Gaslamp Quarter and Boston’s waterfront.
Burka owned development and investment companies. He had launched restaurants in Tempe and Chandler, Arizona. In 2008, he promoted a concert tied to Super Bowl XLII featuring bigname rock, pop and country acts.
In Las Vegas, Costa and Burka oversaw a paper empire of Rascal Flatts restaurants. One or both were listed as managers on nearly 20 separate RF Restaurants filings with the Nevada secretary of state.
Project developers probably didn’t know Costa was Capri’s longtime girlfriend and the mother of his children. Nor was it likely they knew Burka considered himself a minority partner with little financial control over businesses structured by Costa’s attorney.
“Everything was controlled 100% by Tawny,” Burka said in an interview last month from Florida. “I was not an active person in the business. She handled everything. All the operations and the dollars.”
“I do not have nor have I ever had any interest or ownership in any Rascal Flatts project,” Costa said in an email in March. “I had no involvement, contact, or contractual obligation to any developer in any RF project nor am I responsible for any of the obligations of the owners of said company.”
Costa declined to answer a list of questions delivered to her Scottsdale attorney. The lawyer, Shawn Richter, is also Capri’s personal counsel.
Richter emphasized Costa was not an owner of RF Restaurants. His clients have “not given permission to disclose who the owners are,” he said.
Most of the Nevada-based RF companies are in default, according to the secretary of state. Only six were active in March.
In lawsuits against the company, mall owners and developers contended RF Restaurants breached contracts and failed to pay rent on the Rascal Flatts projects. Contractors on projects alleged they were not paid.
“Those are lawsuits I have to defend, because my name is associated with them,” Burka said. “My name is on the lease ... I’m not the big owner in the business. I’m small. I’m a minority. It was Tawny.”
Capri repeatedly uses Burka’s name in the audio recordings, usually as a foil for developers anxious about troubled construction projects:
“Tell them to call. They’ve got Chris Burka’s number ... Burka already got on the phone with the land owner. … I’m going to have Chris Burka fly out there.”
Burka denied being at Capri’s beck and call and said he did not fly anywhere at Capri’s behest.
He said Costa was his only contact at RF Restaurants.
Burka claimed his name was invoked without his knowledge and his signature was forged on documents.
“I didn’t realize the extent of who she
is or what she was doing,” Burka said. “Unfortunately for me, it took me a little bit to get to the point where I could see it.”
Burka acknowledged making phone calls to mall owners and meeting them to initiate projects. But he said he was not involved in the management or construction of projects.
He outlined his deal with Costa as a profit-sharing percentage. He said he brought the Rascal Flatts concept to Costa after working for years to get a licensing agreement from the band.
Text messages and audio recordings indicate Costa’s involvement with the restaurant projects. In one recording, Capri says developers should call Costa if they have questions: “They’ve got Tawny’s number. Tell them to call us.”
In text messages, Costa appears to direct payments and wire confirmations for projects from her phone.
On Dec. 6, 2017, Roshto texted about money from Cleveland: “Hey Tawny this is Ray are we wiring Cleveland money in today according to Frank let me know.”
Costa replied seconds later, “It will hit you(r) account tomorrow.”
Richter said Costa was not involved in any project negotiations and had no role in RF Restaurants’ day-to-day operations.
“If you look at the leases for all of these properties, the only person who negotiated and signed leases is Chris Burka,” Richter said. “I can tell you from the leases I have seen ... It was Burka.”
Burka said he cut off communications with Costa and unofficially withdrew from RF Restaurants last year.
“That was as of last summer,” he said. “Because I couldn’t take any more of the b.s.”
Claims of fake invoices
Capri, Costa and Burka are accused by developers and contractors of using Rascal Flatts projects as personal cash machines. Payouts were worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
“All three of them are in on it,” said Roshto, the Glendale contractor. “They are doing it together. Do I think Frank Capri was the mastermind behind it? Yes, I do.”
Roshto and another project manager hired by Capri said they quickly realized he showed no interest in building Rascal Flatts restaurants.
Paul Yates said Capri used a sophisticated system of fake invoices and exaggerated construction schedules to squeeze as much cash as he could from each project with the least amount of work.
Yates said Capri hired him last year to serve as the on-site manager for RF Restaurants in multiple states. Recorded phone calls back up his claims. In one, Capri hurls obscenities over the way Yates handled a problem in Gainesville.
“Who the f--k are you talking to?” he says. “I am your f--king boss.”
Yates said Capri frequently directed him to create false invoices, claiming certain work had been completed on projects. Yates said the invoices sometimes totaled $400,000.
“We did it on quite a few jobs,” Yates said in an interview from Cleveland. “I did a lot of them.”
Had the work been done?
“No,” Yates said. “Hell, no. No. No, it had been started. And once it had been started, he (Capri) would have all these numbers together. He’d say notarize these real fast, turn them in to me, give them to Chris Burka, and they’d send them out to get the money.”
Yates, who does not have a contractor’s license, lives in Apache Junction, Arizona. He said he makes his living serving as a middleman between contractors and project owners.
He said he regrets what he did for Capri and worries whether he will be left holding the bag.
“I don’t want to go to jail,” Yates said. Roshto’s contract with RF Investments spelled out his job. It also tied Capri to the restaurant projects.
The contract was purportedly signed by Burka on Sept. 16, 2017. Burka maintained the signature wasn’t his.
The one-page contract essentially made Roshto the general contractor on five Rascal Flatts projects and a new Blasted Barley restaurant in Columbus, Ohio.
RF Investments agreed to pay Roshto $72,000 to use his license for projects in Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Boise, Des Moines, St. Louis and Columbus, Ohio. His license allowed the company to sign development deals and file for permits.
The contract gave Yates permission to operate under Roshto’s license. It authorized Yates to schedule and supervise subcontractors on the restaurant projects.
RF Investments agreed to pay Roshto’s taxes “once a full-service estimate is provided by Frank Capri in the total cost of each job outside of Arizona.”
RF Investments offered to pay Roshto extra for making on-site visits. Roshto said his deal with Capri was a straightforward licensing agreement.
“I never left Arizona,” he said. “I never did any of that.”
Roshto estimated he has spent more than $100,000 trying to extricate himself and his company from legal issues tied to Rascal Flatts projects.
“They used me,” Roshto said. “I was used. Used and abused. He (Capri) put a hurt on me financially. I’m about broke right now.”
Threats in Cleveland, Pittsburgh
Capri cashed in twice on the same Cleveland development, first with a Toby Keith restaurant, then with a Rascal Flatts project.
The developer had little way of knowing Capri was behind RF Restaurants when officials signed a deal for a project in the city’s famed entertainment district on the Cuyahoga River — called the Flats.
And they almost certainly wouldn’t do business with him. After all, they sued Capri for $360,000 in 2016 over a failed Toby Keith restaurant.
When the Rascal Flatts project fell behind schedule in 2018, officials discovered they once more were locked in a financial battle with Capri.
Roshto said that when he dropped Capri’s name for the first time, Rob Clarke of Fairmont Properties, the Flats’ general manager, was furious.
“I said, ‘You’re going to have to call Frank Capri,’ ” Roshto said. “He was totally surprised. He shouted out, ‘Frank Capri!’ Then he said it again: ‘Frank Capri.’ And I said, ‘Yeah.’ ”
The general manager wasn’t the only one who got mad, Roshto said. So did Capri.
“Capri said, ‘You can’t be mentioning my name to nobody,’ ” Roshto said. “I asked, ‘Why not?’ Frank said, ‘Just don’t mention my name. If you want to mention a name, mention Chris Burka.’ ”
Clarke did not respond to questions about Capri, RF Restaurants or Rascal Flatts.
In the recorded phone calls, Capri describes Clarke as desperate.
“He’s trying to put pressure on everybody. To get the f--king place built. But what he’s going to do is f--k himself,” Capri says. “We threatened him last week, said we’re going to quit the job, OK? Then he f--king backed up, okay? So he’s being handled. It’s going to be fine. I wouldn’t lie to you.”
If the Cleveland project was bad, Pittsburgh’s was worse – at least for developers.
Forest City Realty Trust had been burned twice by Capri on Toby Keith restaurants in California and Colorado. It won a $1.8 million legal judgment against Capri’s company in 2016.
A year later, Forest City unknowingly was back in business with Capri. It announced a deal with RF Restaurants to open a Rascal Flatts at Pittsburgh’s Station Square mall. Construction stalled in a matter of months.
Forest City officials declined comment.
Behind the scenes in Arizona, Capri told Roshto the Pittsburgh project was “on hold” because the developer had stopped paying, according to phone recordings.
“They are jacking us around because they owe us money, OK?” Capri says. “And it took (them) six weeks to go tell us that. All the while, all the while, we thought it was being paid.”
A contractor gets suspicious
Roshto said he started recording Capri’s phone calls as a precaution, documenting their conversations and saving texts.
The recordings are not date- and time-stamped. Some are cut off midconversation. A few last less than two minutes. Others are longer than six minutes.
The Republic confirmed the recordings came from a cellphone used by Capri. The same cellphone was used to send texts to Roshto.
Capri identifies himself in the recordings and makes references to Costa and Burka. In one call, he instructs Roshto to send documents to him at the RF Restaurants’ email address.
Capri’s texts span nine months, from October 2017 to September 2018. They showed the escalating tension between Capri and Roshto.
When Roshto said in August he would contact developers and pull his license from all six jobs, Capri accused him of extortion.
“I’m blocking your number,” Capri wrote in a text Aug. 13. “This extortion attempt is being forwarded to my attorney. Harassment, threats extortion are illegal acts, so is evading taxes.”
Roshto denied any wrongdoing. He said Capri was the only one making threats.
Havoc stretched from California to Florida until Roshto pulled his license from the projects.
He sent letters in the summer telling developers in Boise, Cleveland, Columbus, Des Moines, Pittsburgh and St. Louis that he was done.
Roshto said the end came when he discovered RF Restaurants had used his license to start jobs in Florida. State regulations prevented Roshto from getting licensed in the Sunshine State, and he was not allowed to oversee construction projects there.
In one of their calls, Capri told Roshto not to worry about the investigation, and they discussed taking advantage of a loophole in state laws by moving Yates to Rascal Flatts projects around Florida for 10 days at a time.
As construction stalled around the country, developers fought to regain control.
Lawyers in Los Angeles sought to evict RF Restaurants from a project just off Hollywood Boulevard’s Walk of Fame.
The owner of the landmark Hollywood and Highland Mall sued RF Restaurants in January 2018 for contract violations. Construction had halted, and owners had stopped paying rent, according to Los Angeles lawyer Daniel Goodkin.
Goodkin said the mall agreed to pay RF Restaurants $1 million to build the restaurant and advanced more than $100,000 to the company. The lawsuit alleged none of the money was spent on construction. It also alleged the company owed hundreds of thousands of dollars in back rent.
Goodkin said the mall won a $780,000 judgment against RF Restaurants and a restraining order so it could negotiate a new lease with a new tenant.
In Pittsburgh, developers sued to evict RF Restaurants from Station Square and accused it of breach of contract. RF Restaurants didn’t fight the action.
Celebration Pointe in Gainesville sued in October.
“I told Frank (Capri), I’m not a shyster, not a crook. I don’t screw people,” Roshto said. “He said, ‘I don’t, either.’ He’s a good con man.”
Workers, contractors left in lurch
Workers on the Rascal Flatts jobs shared stories nearly identical to those told by plumbers, electricians, concrete crews and others who worked on the Toby Keith restaurants.
They said they were hired for jobs by contractors working for Capri or his companies; promised payments would arrive as the work got done; pushed to do more work; and never were paid.
Workers sued Capri and his companies. Even when they won substantial judgments against Capri, payments weren’t often made, court records show.
Charlie Morris is the owner of Premier Plumbing in Florida. He said he is among those “ripped off by Frank Capri” at the Rascal Flatts project in Gainesville.
Morris said he was hired by Yates last year but quickly found out he was working for Capri.
Morris said contractors in Florida were promised payments as soon as RF Restaurants got “draws” from the developer. He said the payments didn’t come even after draws were paid.
Morris said he lost $25,000 on the job but doubts he will file a lawsuit.
“I’d just be getting in line with millions of other people,” he said.
‘It doesn’t make any sense’
Mall developers, contractors, business associates, lawyers all ask the same thing: How does this keep happening?
It’s a question that has echoed for years from the empty buildings and vacant sites of Capri’s doomed projects. How does he get away with it?
“It doesn’t make any sense to me,” Burka said of Capri. “How does a person like this, who is walking around, affecting people’s lives, damaging people’s lives ... still continue?”
A case that is quietly making its way through federal court suggests authorities are paying attention.
On its face, Capri was the victim of an embezzlement scheme perpetrated by a lawyer for Capri’s Boomtown company. The case is not being handled in the same fashion as most criminal cases.
The indictment was waived. The records initially were sealed, and the federal court computer system contained no case number or references.
In a near-empty courtroom Jan. 15, former Boomtown lawyer Gregory McClure pleaded guilty as part of a plea agreement to stealing $1.3 million from the company. He admitted using the money to support a gambling habit.
Capri accused McClure of theft in court filings, suggesting his actions precipitated financial troubles at Boomtown.
McClure’s plea to a single count of transactional money laundering could get him 10 years in prison.
But his deal includes an assurance from the government to not prosecute McClure “for any offenses ... related to defendant’s conduct involving Boomtown Management, LLC and its related entities.”
Many of the mobsters Capri helped put behind bars know what that means. They call it flipping.