Brooklyn Chef Was Cooking The Books, Prosecutors Say

BROOKLYN, NEW YORK -- An innovative Brooklyn chef found a brand new ingredient to cook: the books.

Vincent Tropepe, 36, stands accused of scamming a Yemeni restaurant in Bay Ridge out of more than $14,000, according to the Brooklyn District Attorney's office.

Tropepe conned Yemen Café's owners between July 13 and Aug. 18, when he served as a business consultant and kitchen staff instructor at the Fifth Avenue restaurant near 72nd Street, prosecutors said.

The chef claimed the owners owed him thousands for delinquent violations he'd discovered, negotiated down and paid on their behalf at the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings, prosecutors said.

Tropepe showed them forged documents to back up his story and demanded reimbursements of $2,570 on July 13 and $11,650 on Aug. 13, said prosecutors.

But owners became suspicious and a trip to OATH proved the Tropepe made up the violations,, said prosecutors. When Tropepe demanded a third payment in December, the owners didn't give him any money.

Tropepe was arraigned Friday on grand larceny, criminal possession of a forged instrument and falsifying business records charges in Brooklyn Criminal Court on Friday, prosecutors said.

The Bay Ridge chef, who could face seven years in prison if convicted, was released without bail and ordered to return to court on April 17.

Prosecutors did not name the Yemen Cafe owners, but Eater did in a trip to the restaurant in 2017.

Sid Nassir told Dining on a Dime host Lucas Peterson that he to cook from his father, who was a chef at Windows of the World, the restaurant at the top of the Twin Towers, in the 1980s, and that his father had served as an ambassador to Yemeni immigrants arriving in New York.

"I don't know a lot of the Yemeni people but the ones I met today are incredibly kind," Peterson said. "I love the food ... I'm giving them my money."