Frank Capri, a former mobster in Arizona who was behind Toby Keith and Rascal Flatts-branded restaurants across the U.S., was arrested Wednesday. The Arizona Republic reports that Capri has been indicted on federal fraud charges.
In addition to Capri’s indictment, his mother, Debbie Corvo, and another unnamed person were also indicted by the grand jury on Jan. 28 on 16 counts of fraud, conspiracy and money laundering, according to the Arizona U.S. Attorney’s Office.
The news comes nearly a year after Rascal Flatts announced that they terminated plans for a restaurant chain in their name. Capri, who allegedly worked with New York’s Lucchese crime family, has also been linked to Keith’s failed restaurant chain Toby Keith’s I Love This Bar & Grill.
Rascal Flatts first addressed their decision to halt development to fans in an Instagram post in January 2019. “You may have noticed our name was associated with a restaurant project,” they wrote. “We ended the agreement and do not have a business relationship with the developer. They are not authorized to use our name in any way. We wanted to be transparent to our fans in case there was any confusion related to our involvement in the restaurants.”
The investigation of Capri has been ongoing since 2015, the Arizona Republic reports. Previously, the publication exposed Capri’s identity as an ex-mobster, discovering that he was “given a new identity through the Federal Witness Protection Program and used it to bilk developers out of millions of dollars.”
