A South Florida woman and her brother have been indicted in a decades-long bribery and money laundering scheme that defrauded the franchise owners of a sub sandwich chain out of over $80 million, authorities said.
Janet Risi Field, 66, of Pinecrest, and her brother, Steven Louis Risi, 70, of Coral Gables, were indicted by a federal grand jury on multiple charges in the scheme that defrauded thousands of franchisees, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida said Thursday.
Prosecutors said the pair’s scheme involved vendors who were seeking contracts to supply the franchisees paying Risi Field and members of her family millions of dollars in secret bribes and kickbacks.
The name of the restaurant chain wasn’t disclosed by prosecutors but they said it’s an American multinational fast-food chain with more than 20,000 locations in North America, most of which were independently owned and operated by franchisees.
Risi Field had helped form Independent Purchasing Cooperative, Inc., a nonprofit based in Miami-Dade that managed the chain’s supply chain and negotiated with vendors for food, supply and service prices.
She served as the non-profit’s CEO and had the authority to enter into vendor contracts, which she used to enter into secret arrangements in which vendor brokers shared a portion of contract fees with Risi Field and members of her family, authorities said.
Risi Field, her brother, and other family members used shell companies to conceal over $60 million in illegal bribe and kickback payments, prosecutors said.
The payments funded a lavish lifestyle that included homes in Florida and North Carolina, private investments over $400,000 in jewelry, private clubs and personal expenses, officials said.
Beginning in the early 2000s, Risi Field also enriched herself and other family members with a multimillion dollar slush fund used to pay a personal assistant, her housekeeper and handyman, prosecutors said.
Millions of dollars in proceeds from the scheme were laundered through shell companies and bank accounts controlled by Risi Field and Risi, with around $3.4 million in alleged proceeds used to pay Risi Field’s credit card expenses and around $1 million deposited into a bank account controlled by the siblings, authorities said.
Risi Field Allegedly caused about $25 million in slush fund payments in total, prosecutors said.
Around 2011, Risi Field caused a co-conspirator to pay around $8 million to settle a lawsuit brought by a former contractor who alleged she had an inappropriate financial relationship with vendors then concealed the allegations and details of the settlement from the non-profit’s board of directors, prosecutors said.
When Risi Field was terminated from the non-profit in 2021, the board of directors was unaware of the payments and she was paid over $6 million in severance, authorities said.
Risi Field and Risi are both charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering and two counts of engaging in monetary transactions in property derived from specified unlawful activity, while Risi Field is also facing wire fraud charges.
If convicted, they face up to 20 years in prison for the money laundering conspiracy and 10 years in prison on each monetary transactions count, with Risi Field also facing a maximum of 20 years on the other charges.
Dining and Cooking