The feds spent more than two years trying to nail Rep. Michael Grimm for campaign-finance fraud — but wound up indicting him over his sales of salads and sandwiches.
The hotheaded Staten Island Republican surrendered Monday to face 20 counts of fraud, perjury and obstruction tied to his former ownership of an Upper East Side fast-food eatery that, the feds charge, employed illegal aliens off the books.
The charges against Grimm, 44, an ex-Marine and former FBI agent, carry a maximum sentence of 20 years behind bars and include hiding more than $1 million in cash that the Second Avenue restaurant Healthalicious took in between 2007 and 2010.
FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge George Venizelos blasted the second-term congressman.
“As a former FBI agent, Grimm should understand the motto: fidelity, bravery and integrity. Yet he broke our credo at every turn,” Venizelos said. “In this 20-count indictment, Representative Grimm lived by a new motto: fraud, perjury and obstruction.”
Grimm also is accused of lying under oath while a member of Congress during a January 2013 deposition tied to a civil suit filed by his employees.
That case, which was settled, involved claims by two former restaurant workers who said they were paid less than minimum wage and got cheated out of overtime.
Brooklyn US Attorney Loretta Lynch said Grimm had been “poised for success as a small-business owner” after leaving the FBI and buying a 45 percent stake in the restaurant.
“Instead, as alleged, Grimm made the choice to go from upholding the law to breaking it,” Lynch said. “In doing so, he turned his back on every oath he had ever taken.”
The indictment says Grimm ran the day-to-day operations of Healthalicious from 2007 through 2010 and personally handled payroll.
To execute his scheme, the feds allege, Grimm lied or directed others to lie to a payroll processor by concealing the cash wages paid to the Healthalicious employees.
Grimm sold his interest in Healthalicious after his 2010 election. In 2012, it was revealed that former partner Bennett Orfaly had ties to the Gambino crime family and was so close to one mob capo that Orfaly considered him like an “uncle.”
Grimm — who made headlines after last January’s State of the Union for threatening to throw a TV reporter off a Capitol balcony in response to questions about the feds’ probe — pleaded not guilty through his lawyer and was released on $400,000 bond secured by his home.
At a news conference afterward, he slammed the case against him as a “political witch hunt” and vowed to “get back to work” representing his district.
“I know who I am, and I know what I’ve done for this country,” Grimm said outside the Brooklyn federal courthouse. “I know I’m a moral man, a man of integrity.”
Grimm associates have already been busted in the probe, including former girlfriend Diana Durand, who’s accused of getting “straw donors” to make campaign contributions in exchange for illegal reimbursements. A former business partner, Israeli national Ofer Biton, pleaded guilty to visa fraud.
Lynch wouldn’t say if any of Grimm’s pals were cooperating with the feds, but she noted that Grimm remained under investigation.
Grimm, who later Monday stepped down from his post on the House Financial Services Committee, has acknowledged receiving up to $300,000 in campaign contributions from followers of shadowy Rabbi Yoshiyahu Yosef Pinto, for whom Biton formerly served as an aide.
Grimm’s indictment came two weeks after the deadline for him to take his name off the ballot to seek a third term in November. He faces Democratic challenger Domenic Recchia, a former city councilman.
Republican and Conservative leaders have alleged that the timing of the indictment was politically motivated.
Additional reporting by Geoff Earle