Federal prosecutors served up an indictment to a pair of “high-level employees” at a South County chophouse yesterday, accusing them of defrauding their employer out of more than $1.4 million over the course of about five years.
The unauthorized purchases that Mark Erney and Matthew Braasch allegedly put on the Sam’s Steakhouse company card add up to eye-popping totals. From February 2020 until last month, Braasch is accused of spending $81,000 at Target, $29,000 at the clothing store Vineyard Vines, and $39,000 at Amazon. He dropped $1,600 on one day at the Chesterfield Top Golf, prosecutors say. One day in January 2024, he spent more than $5,400 on Cardinals tickets.
Get a fresh take on the day’s top news
Subscribe to the St. Louis Daily newsletter for a smart, succinct guide to local news from award-winning journalists Sarah Fenske and Ryan Krull.
During those five years, Erney allegedly spent $155,000 at Amazon, almost $30,000 at Rehab Bar and Grill in the Grove, and nearly $8,000 at Just John down the street. On one day in July 2023, Erney ran up an $880 bill at Sasha’s on Shaw. In the fall of 2021, he bought two couches from Amazon, totalling a little more than $5,500–all allegedly with his employer’s money.
Erney was the restaurant’s manager for more than seven years, according to a 2023 profile. In the profile, he spoke admiringly of the restaurant’s owners, former Anheuser Busch president Denny Long and his son Patrick. “Denny and Patrick spent the last 30 years building all these bridges, and I wasn’t about to come in here and start tearing them down,” he said. It is not clear what Braasch’s official role at the restaurant was.
The indictments say that because of the two men’s illicit purchases, the steakhouse, identified only as S.S. in court filings, ran out of money to buy food and to pay its taxes. To cover their debts and continue their scheme, the indictment says, Braasch took out loans on behalf of the restaurant without the knowledge of his higher-ups.
However, some taxes did not get paid and the state of Missouri began looking into the business. When that happened, Braasch posed as a company manager when state tax collectors investigated.
It’s unclear exactly how the two men’s scheme unraveled, but the indictment says it continued until this past Wednesday, one day prior to the indictment.
This isn’t the first time Erney has faced criminal charges related to theft.
In April 2014, the Post-Dispatch reported that Erney was given five years’ probation and ordered to repay $45,000 after stealing from his business partners with whom he co-owned a Hamburger Mary’s franchise location in Midtown. Erney, at the time living in Webster Grove, then owned a tavern in the Grove, Erney’s 32 Degrees, and had previously owned The Loading Zone in the Central West End, which closed after it caught fire for undetermined reasons in 2011.
In a 2023 profile of Sam’s, Erney said that the business was thriving, managing to turn younger customers into regulars without alienating the old guard. He credits the steakhouse’s longevity to its 42-ingredient sauce
“It really does have 42 different ingredients in it,” he told Cheryl Baehr. “So there’s no way anyone is getting them all, and even if they do, they don’t know the amounts—and it can easily sway one way or another if you screw with it.”
