Card company wants restaurants in receivership

American Express asks court to take assets out of Tangredi family's control while Michael Tangredi responds to another federal lawsuit and an online nemesis is 'hacked and deleted'

Email | Print By E. Thomas Wood

Michael D. Tangredi

A court-appointed minder will be serving up the Spaghetti Puttanesca and Ahi Tuna Burgers at a pair of restaurants operated by Nashville's Tangredi family if American Express gets its way.

The credit card issuer has filed a motion in Nashville's U.S. District Court seeking the appointment of a receiver who would take custody of all the Tangredis' assets, including Tangredi's Italian Kitchen on Elliston Place and Michael T's on Division St.

The defendants formerly ran T's Bar and Grill on Belcourt Avenue until a landlord shut the restaurant down in December, claiming it was not properly insured.

A month before, American Express had filed suit against Michael D. Tangredi, his son Michael G. Tangredi and their company M. Tangredi Restaurants Inc., as well as related parties. It accuses them of operating "a fraudulent credit card factoring scam" to steal and then hide away more than $1 million.

"Given the fraudulent and criminal nature of the defendants’ conduct, and the fact that stolen money has been secreted, American Express fears that further efforts will be made by the defendants to secrete, transfer, encumber or otherwise place assets out of reach," a memorandum accompanying the latest motion says.

"A neutral person is required to take over and run defendants’ restaurants so as to gather, collect, preserve, manage, marshal, and otherwise oversee" the Tangredis' personal and business property," the company argues – "lest there be nothing left for American Express to recover when judgment ultimately enters against the defendants."

The filing also says American Express has "discovered several additional fraudulent charges," made last July, that raise the amount in question from $1.15 million to $1.22 million.

In late December, acting without a lawyer, Michael D. Tangredi filed an answer to the original American Express complaint. To each of its assertions of wrongdoing, he responded: "The defendant does not know certainly of the accusation herein, therefore the defendant denies the accusation."

The U.S. Department of Labor has also filed suit against the Tangredi company in federal court, saying it had failed to cooperated with an investigation involving the restaurateur's employee records. The elder Tangredi responded to that legal action in a Jan. 6 filing, again made without benefit of counsel.

Tangredi asked in his reply to be given "an ample amount of time" to produce the payroll records that the DOL is seeking. And he says he cannot produce any records for the last half of 2006 because the payroll preparer he was using at the time destroyed them amid a legal dispute with the restaurateurs.

Tangredi told NashvillePost.com this afternoon that he now has a lawyer, but he refused to name the attorney. He declined to comment further on the legal cases.

Though the Tangredis still have to deal with AmEx, the feds and their ex-landlord (who is seeking unspecified damages), one of their adversaries has gone silent. A blog called Tangredi Italian Kitchen Nightmares, which last year posted anonymous accusations about supposed wrongdoing at the Tangredi restaurants, "has been hacked and deleted," according to a note now found on the Web site.