Developer who stole from Subway founder exits jail

Anthony Pugliese
Anthony Pugliese

Anthony Pugliese, a Delray Beach real estate developer, was released from jail four months into his six-month sentence for stealing more than $1 million from a co-founder of the Subway sandwich store chain.

Pugliese pleaded no contest to charges of creating fake companies and invoices to swindle Subway co-founder Fred DeLuca, who died last year. Pugliese and DeLuca were business partners in a failed residential development calledDestiny on land south of Yeehaw Junction.

Pugliese, who agreed to repay DeLuca

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, started serving a six-month jail sentence late last year. He subsequently asked Circuit Court Judge Glenn Kelley to reduce the sentence to house arrest, citing claustrophobia. The judge denied the request.

But Palm Beach County jail officials told the Palm Beach Post that Pugliese was released in early April after serving four months behind bars. Douglas Duncan, an attorney representing Pugliese, was unavailable for comment.

A civil attorney for DeLuca, Rick Hutchison, told the Palm Beach Post in an email last week that “we are pleased that justice was finally served, given that for years Anthony Pugliese lied about his involvement in the crimes and blamed others for the destruction of documents when it was Anthony Pugliese and his employees that destroyed documents and created false invoices.” [Palm Beach Post] — Mike Seemuth