Prosecutors: Drug money launderer's wife retrieved $250K from Worcester restaurant basement
Photo | Zachary Comeau
The former Chameleon restaurant has been sold to Meze Greek Tapas.
The trial for the wife of a convicted drug dealer, money launderer and Worcester restaurateur is set to begin on July 22, and prosecutors have detailed in court filings evidence they plan to use to convince a jury of her guilt.
Stacey Gala, wife of Kevin Perry, is charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering after taking her husband’s drug money and using it to remodel The Usual restaurant on Shrewsbury Street after her husband’s arrest.
According to U.S. federal prosecutors, there was more hidden money than originally alleged in her indictment.
Perry was sentenced to 14 years in prison last May after pleading guilty to nine counts of money laundering, three counts of aggravated cash structuring, one count of making a false statement on a loan application and one count of distribution of fentanyl.
He was arrested in March 2017, but Gala wasted no time and opened reopened the Usual as The Chameleon. That restaurant lasted until October 2017 when it closed.
She and co-worker Joseph Herman were charged in February 2018.
Gala, Joseph Herman and another restaurateur, Christopher Slavinskas, are all alleged to have used Perry’s hidden drug money for investments into restaurants.
In court filing, the government referenced a recorded phone call between Perry and Gala in which Perry asked why she provided Herman with an additional $380,000 of his hidden drug money.
Gala replied Herman said he would invest that money in other restaurants for her to own and operate.
The $385,000 is in addition to $280,000 Gala retrieved from a Northborough storage locker, as alleged in her indictment.
According to the government, $135,000 was provided to one of Gala’s family members for bail money in anticipation of her arrest. Another $250,000 was taken by Gala and her relative from a hiding spot in the basement of The Usual, the government said. Those funds were hidden in the relative’s home.
That money was then provided to Herman, who in turn gave it to Slavinskas to conceal.
Herman, facing charges of conspiracy to commit money laundering, lying to authorities and attempted witness tampering, pleaded guilty in January is set to be sentenced in August.
Slavinskas pleaded guilty in March 2018 to lying to investigators and is set for sentencing in August.
The property was seized by the federal government and then sold to the owner of Meze Greek Tapas, which relocated and opened Meze Estiatorio earlier this year.
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