Former Crop Bistro Owner Charged With Felonies for Using $800,000 in COVID Relief Funds on Personal Expenses

Crop Bistro owner Marcelo Fadul Neves in an undated photo. Neves was charged Tuesday with 14 felonies, for writing bad checks to telecommunications fraud. Credit: Douglas Trattner

In 2020, Crop Bistro owner Marcelo Fadul Neves was handed $846,720 in pandemic relief funds, like a myriad of businesses across the country, to keep his restaurant afloat in dire straits.

But he allegedly didn’t use the funds for that purpose.

Instead, the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office claims, Neves allegedly used those hundreds of thousands of dollars on “personal expenses, paying off debts” and buying his next restaurant, Bistro on the Falls, the indictment reads.

Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael O’Malley claims Neves also passed $140,000 in bad checks to his workers from 2020 to 2024.

For all of that, Neves was hit Tuesday with 14 felony allegations, from aggravated theft to telecommunications fraud and ten counts of passing bad checks.

“We have seen numerous examples of citizens using COVID Relief Funds for improper purposes,” O’Malley said. “This case is one of the most egregious.”

Neves opened up Crop Bistro in 2011, which was based in the upscale, high-ceiling space in Ohio City’s United Bank Building. He closed the restaurant in 2021, a year into the period in which Neves is alleged to have misused the funds.

Olmsted Falls and Westlake police arrested Neves in Westlake on Tuesday, after intervention by the U.S. Secret Service Money Laundering Task Force.

He’ll be arraigned Thursday.