The owner of CJ’s Southern Kitchen promised to bring chicken fried steak and a “family dining experience” to a Grapevine shopping center, to the delight of City Council members.
Instead, she left behind a vacant building, unpaid contractors, a broken lease and fraudulent bank loans, according to lawsuits and a federal indictment.
Jennifer Lynn Pharris, 38, and her father, Dennis Joe Pharris, 70, are both charged with fraud in federal court in Dallas in connection with the failed restaurant. Prosecutors say the father-daughter team stole the identity of her 91-year-old grandmother to obtain bank loans for CJ’s.
Read more from NBC 5's media partner The Dallas Morning News.
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