GULFPORT, Miss. (WJTV) – A Mississippi corporation operating as Mary Mahoney’s Old French House restaurant in Biloxi, Mississippi, and its co-owner and manager were sentenced on charges for a long-standing conspiracy to misbrand seafood.

Prosecutors said the corporation and Anthony Charles Cvitanovich, 55, substituted inexpensive imported fish for the local premium species they advertised and declared on their menus.

The court accepted the terms of a plea agreement Mary Mahoney’s reached with the government and sentenced the company to five years of probation and ordered it to pay a total penalty of $1,499,000, which included $149,000 as a criminal fine and $1,350,000 in forfeiture for some of the proceeds it had obtained from its fraudulent sales of seafood to its customers. According to prosecutors, the court Court also imposed special conditions of supervision.

On May 30, 2024, Mary Mahoney’s pled guilty to a felony charging the corporation with conspiracy to misbrand seafood and wire fraud in connection with a scheme that began as early as 2002 and continued through November of 2019.

Cvitanovich was sentenced to three years of probation and four months of home detention. He was also ordered to pay a $10,000 fine. On May 30, 2024, Cvitanovich pled guilty to a felony Information charging him with misbranding of seafood during 2018 and 2019.

The Food and Drug Administration – Office of Criminal Investigations initiated the case.