A TriBeCa caterer went on a $361,000 spending spree with his boyfriend’s credit card while the pair shared a love nest at the tony Ritz-Carlton – splurging on such goodies as spa treatments, personal shoppers and dog-walkers, prosecutors said yesterday.
Carl Butcho, 26, who runs the trendy TriBeCa Chef, allegedly passed himself off as the heir to a large fortune as he racked up bills on the corporate card of his beau, an Ernst & Young employee.
He spent weeks between August and September 2007 ringing up charges, including renting limos and scooping up luxury goods via the Ritz’s personal-shopping service, authorities said.
“He told us he had a giant fortune,” said the co-owner of the Greenwich Village eatery where Butcho recently worked before suddenly disappearing, saying he had intestinal cancer.
“He told us he lived in an $8 million apartment and was buying a $10 million apartment,” said the restaurateur, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
In addition to fleecing his then-boyfriend, Jason Warner, Butcho also scammed $8,000 from a dog-walker by having her charge expenses on her credit card, and then not reimbursing her, officials said.
The chef was held in lieu of $50,000 bond at his arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court yesterday. He is charged with two counts of grand larceny.
The suspect’s lawyer, Lawrence Fredella, called the charges “ridiculous,” and blamed Warner for the mess, saying he was the one who signed the credit-card receipts, and is now trying to pin blame on Butcho.