On second chances – Michael Rothfeld, William K. Rashbaum and Susan C. Beachy in NYT:

‘Vadim Shubaderov, a 35-year-old businessman, thought he had stumbled on the perfect opportunity when he met a charismatic pair of identical twins in Brooklyn.
The brothers, Johnny and Robert Petrosyants, were successful bar operators who routinely dropped thousands of dollars at a Russian restaurant in the Flatiron district, were driven around in a Mercedes-Benz and, most impressively, counted the new Brooklyn borough president, Eric Adams, as a good friend. When the twins invited Mr. Shubaderov to invest in a catering company in 2014, he plunked down $350,000, virtually his entire life savings.
“They wined and dined me,” said Mr. Shubaderov. “They built up an image of super successful entrepreneurs with deep political connections.” He never saw his money again.
Time and again over the past decade, the Petrosyants brothers have boasted of their friendship with Mr. Adams, New York City’s mayor, while courting partners like Mr. Shubaderov for a range of ventures. The relationship has helped them gloss over something less savory: Both pleaded guilty in 2014 to financial crimes related to insurance claims.’

(…)

‘There is no indication that Mr. Adams has ever done business with the brothers or has any insight into their practices. But his close friendship with them underscores his penchant for surrounding himself with people who have troubled pasts and ignoring any ethical questions that such relationships might pose, even if his friends might have something to gain.
“That’s why people buy time with presidents and mayors,” said John Kaehny, executive director of the watchdog group Reinvent Albany. “It’s because they want to be associated with their power, and it is brand-building. It is validation.” As Mr. Adams has ascended, the Petrosyantses — 41-year-old Armenians from Turkmenistan — have risen, too. Having immigrated to the United States as teenagers in 1996, they now operate five restaurants and have described plans for two more. Mr. Adams, 62, has spent many evenings at their showpiece, Osteria La Baia on West 52nd Street, visiting 14 times in June alone. Often, he was ushered in after other customers had gone home.’

(…)

‘The mayor’s spokesman, Maxwell Young, said that Mr. Adams knew nothing of the twins’ dealings and did not discuss their businesses with them. He added that Mr. Adams bought an apartment in Fort Lee because he was drawn to its views of the New York City skyline, not because the twins lived there.
“The mayor does not judge people based on allegations reported in the papers, and he will not do so here,” Mr. Young said. “As a general matter, of course, the mayor expects all businesses to comply with all rules and regulations.”’

(…)

‘The official owner of La Baia was Marianna Shahmuradyan, Robert Petrosyants’ domestic partner and the mother of his three children — who, in a 2014 letter to the judge in the brothers’ criminal case, said she was a stay-at-home mother who had never worked. Since then, Robert Petrosyants told The Times, she had become the legitimate owner of four restaurants employing nearly 200 people, while his role was to build and manage the businesses and find investors.
State regulators require liquor license applicants to disclose stakeholders and funding sources, but Ms. Shahmuradyan’s application for La Baia omitted mention of Alexander Orlov, a Russian restaurant magnate described in another document as its primary investor.
A co-founder of Bulldozer Group, a Dubai firm that operates upscale restaurants in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, Mr. Orlov visited New York in summer 2017, posting a picture on Instagram of himself with the twins and La Baia’s landlord.
“Soon we’ll start our new project- restaurant in NYC!” the caption said, with the tag “#partners.” A short time later, the landlord announced that Bulldozer had signed the lease for La Baia’s West 52nd Street space.
Mr. Orlov was described in a Russian news article in 2011 as a member of the ruling United Russia party and a member of committees on Moscow landmarks and school lunches.
In September 2020, after Ms. Shahmuradyan listed herself on a liquor license application as the only funding source for La Baia, a consultant working for the restaurant invited Mr. Orlov for a final walk-through “as the main investor on the project,” according to a letter provided in support of a United States visa application for Mr. Orlov.’

(…)

‘Across at least 10 different restaurants over the past decade, the twins and their associates have left a trail of allegations from investors, regulators and landlords, records and interviews show.
They have left their names off official documents in nearly every venture since their convictions, controlling restaurants opened in the names of others.
In one instance, state officials sought to cancel the liquor license at one of their restaurants after accusing the owner of ceding control of the license to the twins. The administrative charge was ultimately dismissed, but the license was canceled on other grounds.
Robert Petrosyants said he was only a manager at various restaurants and had been misidentified as an owner on a lease guarantee for Forno Rosso, though records show he has borrowed money using restaurant proceeds as collateral. This summer, he obtained a certificate from the state permitting him to apply for a liquor license despite his conviction.
Aside from the allegations surrounding Forno Rosso and La Baia, the twins were accused of starting at least one other restaurant, Wallabout Seafood & Co. in the Fort Greene section of Brooklyn, with misappropriated money.
“I trusted them. I thought we were friends,” testified the investor, Steven Ripa, the dentist who said he spent $340,000 to build the restaurant before learning the brothers had cut him out of it, in a deposition. “I could not imagine that I would be cheated.” Robert Petrosyants declined to comment on the suit except to note that some of the claims had been dismissed. One, for breach of contract, is pending.
Among the seafood restaurant’s first customers was Bill de Blasio, New York’s mayor at the time. Mr. Adams also frequented Wallabout, dining on shellfish at his regular table in an upstairs alcove by a window, according to two former employees of the restaurant.
In another instance, after the twins opened a hot dog shop called Links on Manhattan’s Lower East Side in 2012, records and interviews show, they sold beer and wine using the liquor license of a hookah bar owner who had moved away, an apparent violation of state law. They had inherited the space, and the hookah bar operator’s license, from a friend, Diamond Iseni, who, federal prosecutors have said, led an Albanian organized crime operation and once threatened a man by holding a fork to his eye. Robert Petrosyants said that Mr. Iseni had asked the twins to look after the place before going to prison on money laundering charges. He emphatically denied selling alcohol from the restaurant.’

(…)

‘By mid-2021, the twins were more focused on La Baia, which opened the same month Mr. Adams won the mayoral race. About a week after his victory, he posed for photos outside the restaurant near a car filled with flowers, and praised its food to The New York Post.
Business seemed to be going well by April, when Robert’s partner, Ms. Shahmuradyan, bought a $1.6 million home on two acres in Saddle River, N.J., records show. Mr. Petrosyants was not on the deed or the mortgage.
Still, the attention Mr. Adams has garnered for the twins and their restaurants has brought problems as well, Robert Petrosyants said. News articles focused on their decade-old criminal convictions, he said, have felt unfair since they have never sought favors or government contracts.
“Yes, we made a mistake. We paid dearly for it,” he said, adding: “New York is all about second chances, but I guess in my case, it doesn’t exist.”’

Read the article here.

It doesn’t always pay off to know the mayor or to get praised by the mayor.
My favorite part is the bit about Diamond Iseni, leading Albanian organized crime and threating a man by holding a fork to its eye.

The innocent diners in NCY, and elsewhere, don’t know where they step into.

The mayor might have praised the food, behind the scenes a human eye can end up – by mistake of course - in the steak tartare.

In praise of the environment and the sustainability, we will eat everything.