Restaurant to honor Agape World gift cards

Restaurant to honor Agape World gift cards
by David Winzelberg
Published: February 26, 2009
Giftcards to Woodbury restaurant Speranza

It seems alleged scammer Nick Cosmo was quite a generous gift card giver.
The Agape World owner gave thousands of dollars in gift cards for a Woodbury restaurant to clients whose investments in Agape were allegedly used to fund the opening of the eatery.
Richard Ottimo, a partner in Speranza Food Studio on Jericho Turnpike, said Thursday that all Agape World gift cards would be honored as soon as he figures out how to limit customers from spending them all at once.
Ottimo surmised that Agape gift card holders would probably be limited to $250 or so per month.
“I apologize for everything,” Ottimo said, according to one investor.
The cards range in value from $500 to several thousand dollars. One investor has a $5,000 gift card to Speranza and he said he will be making several trips to the just-opened restaurant.
If convicted of the alleged $370 million Ponzi scheme, Cosmo will be sent to federal prison for a second time. He previously did time in Allenwood Federal Correctional Complex in 1999 for securities fraud.
Restaurateur Ottimo just got out of federal prison himself last March for defrauding the U.S. Department of Defense in a scheme to over-bill contractor Northrop Grumman in Bethpage.