An Apex businessman was previously indicted on felony state tax charges on March 7, 2023, and pleaded guilty on Wednesday, July 23, 2025, in Wake County Superior Court to 15 felony state tax charges filed by the North Carolina Department of Revenue related to three restaurant and bar locations in Durham, Raleigh, and a former location in Chapel Hill.
Information presented in court showed that Raed Abdel Karim Amra, the President and responsible person of ARR Entertainment, Inc., IEAT LLC, and TRSC-Chapel Hill, all doing business as Tobacco Road Sports Café, aided and abetted the businesses to embezzle, misapply, and convert to its’ own use approximately $1,711,868.79 in North Carolina Sales Tax during the period October 1, 2012, through December 31, 2019, which was under a duty to collect, hold in trust, and remit North Carolina Sales Tax to the North Carolina Department of Revenue.
Amra, 49, of 3901 Orchard Point Court, Apex, appeared before Wake County Superior Court Judge Paul Ridgeway who imposed suspended prison terms totaling up to 32 months in separate judgments. Amra was sentenced to five years of supervised probation, which includes conditions such as house arrest for the first 12 months of supervised probation, and an order to serve 150 days in the custody of the North Carolina Division of Adult Correction in 30-day intervals within 12 months. The judgments are concurrent unless probation is violated, and then the judgments would run consecutively. Furthermore, Amra paid $1,000,000 prior to the pleas and was ordered to pay the remaining restitution over the 60-month probation period.
This case was the result of an investigation conducted by the North Carolina Department of Revenue's Criminal Investigations Division and was prosecuted by the Attorney General's Special Prosecutions office.