Man From Merrimack, Former Queen City Restaurant Manager Sent To Prison For Stealing $150K+

MANCHESTER, NH — A former Manchester restaurant manager was imprisoned on Tuesday after pleading guilty to stealing money from a popular Queen City eatery.

James Peretti, the former general manager of The Foundry Restaurant, pleaded guilty to two felony theft charges in April in Hillsborough County Superior Court North. On one count, he was sentenced to two to four years in prison and ordered to pay $150,633 in restitution. Peretti was also sentenced to a consecutive seven-and-a-half-to-15-year sentence, which was suspended for 15 years.

Throughout his nearly four-year stint as general manager of the restaurant, Peretti generated fraudulent reimbursement claims and used them as the basis for taking cash he was not entitled to. He was charged with felony theft in March 2024. Two months later, he was charged again with theft by deception for falsifying an employee’s clock-in entries to make it appear as if they had worked hours when they did not. Peretti then diverted paychecks reflecting the falsified hours away from the employee and deposited them into a bank account the employee had no control over. Peretti then spent the money.

The New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office said Fred Lulka of the Department of Justice’s Consumer Protection and Antitrust Bureau investigated this case with the assistance of Det. Ray Lamy of the Manchester Police Department. Assistant Attorney General Zach Frish and Senior Assistant Attorney General Bryan J. Townsend II prosecuted the case. Sunny Mulligan Shea assisted as a victim-witness advocate.

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