Compass Coffee co-founders split amid claim of misspent covid funds. (Washington Post)
Washington Post | January 13, 2025
The co-founders of the popular Compass Coffee chain in Washington have severed ties, with the company’s former chief executive accusing its owner of fraudulently misusing pandemic relief funds in a lawsuit filed Monday. The litigation threatens to puncture the company’s reputation as a feel-good story of two former Marines who built a coffee franchise from the ground up.
In the 43-page federal lawsuit, Harrison Suarez seeks millions of dollars in compensation for what he says was his termination via email by Michael Haft in mid-2021. Suarez accused Haft, Compass Coffee and the famed Haft business family of Washington of running a racketeering enterprise while defrauding Suarez of his share of the fair market value of the company under a signed operating agreement. Suarez also claims the company defrauded the government of some of the more than $10 million it received from pandemic loan and grant programs since 2020.
In a civil claim under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, Suarez’s lawyers with Ali & Lockwood, a boutique litigation firm in Washington, seek triple damages and raised the prospect of wire fraud or other potentially criminal misconduct, alleging the Haft family engaged in a “pattern of defrauding business partners and others to unlawfully enrich themselves.”
View the full original article at https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2025/01/13/compass-coffee-racketeering-covid-lawsuit/