Ex-sub shop workers accused of stealing $50,000 for unlicensed food truck, police report says

When Claudia and Marco Roca opened Capriotti’s Sandwich Shop last summer in Plantation, they hyped its arrival with a marketing blitz. They introduced a 24-karat, gold-flake turkey sub. They even invited a celebrity, Edward “Big Ed” Brown from “90 Day Fiancé,” to make them, drawing in legions of fans to the shop.

Now their Plantation franchise is “hanging on by a thread” — while their original Capriotti’s in North Miami Beach has been forced to close — following the alleged theft of $52,800 in goods from both restaurants, Claudia Roca told the South Florida Sun Sentinel.

“It has been devastating,” she said. “We put everything into these restaurants, and now we could lose them both.”

Roca accused a former Capriotti’s manager, Shamika Johnson, and husband Johnny Georges Dorvil of conspiring to pull off an “organized theft” of “meats, breads, packaging and proprietary ingredients” over a six-month period between October 2024 and March 2025, according to an April 24 Plantation police report.

Johnson and Dorvil, both Davie residents, allegedly used the stolen goods to cook and sell Philly cheesesteak subs out of an unlicensed food truck called Deb’s Philly Cheesesteaks, which has multiple active accounts on social media, Plantation police records say.

The Broward Sheriff’s Office arrested Johnson, 46, and Dorvil, 46, on grand theft charges on May 16, Plantation police spokesman Chavez Grant confirmed in an email. Johnson was released after posting a $4,000 bail on May 18, while Dorvil remains in custody, according to county court records.

Neither Johnson nor the Broward County Public Defender’s Office, which represents Johnson and Dorvil, could be reached for comment despite multiple calls and text messages.

The couple have not yet entered a plea, and no arraignment has been set as of the publication of this article, according to the Broward County Clerk of Court’s office.

An ‘organized theft’

Roca told police she hired Johnson as a general manager in October to work at her Capriotti’s franchise locations in Plantation and North Miami Beach. Johnson then hired Dorvil without revealing to the Rocas that it was her husband, according to the April 24 Plantation police report.

“[Johnson] told me she worked with someone really good all her life, wanted to bring this person in and she sent me his resume,” Roca told the Sun Sentinel. “I reviewed the paperwork and put him on the payroll.”

The report alleges that Johnson and Dorvil evaded detection for six months as they smuggled bread loaves, meats and cheeses out of the Plantation Capriotti’s walk-in cooler and placed them into a gray SUV parked behind the building. One of those incidents was captured in a Feb. 15 surveillance video, according to footage turned over to Plantation police by Roca.

In a March 6 video, a person identified in the police report as Dorvil is seen removing a small box of cheese from the cooler and nesting it inside a larger brown box before disappearing out of camera frame. Seconds later, the same person is shown holding the larger brown box outside on a separate surveillance camera.

Roca told police that it was “company policy to report the transportation of restaurant supplies from one location to another,” which Johnson and Dorvil never did. According to the report, Johnson used her “access as a store manager to grant unauthorized compensatory meals and discounts to cover the discrepancies of the stolen merchandise.”

Between October 2024 and February 2025, losses from the Plantation location alone totaled nearly $31,000, according to county arrest records. Roca told Plantation police that the total amount stolen adds up to $52,800 in “improper [compensatory] meals” and stolen food items at both locations.

In March, when Roca told Johnson that she wanted to set a meeting to discuss the discrepancies in missing inventory, Johnson “walked out and quit,” Roca told police. That’s when the owners combed over old balance sheets and surveillance footage from both locations, tallied the losses and called police.

Roca says she has also filed a report with North Miami Beach police, but the status of any investigation is unclear as of this article’s publication.

‘Barely holding on’

During the same month, Johnson and Dorvil started operating their Deb’s Philly Cheesesteaks food truck, which created its first social-media post on March 8.

In a public Facebook post on March 26, Johnson wrote that she created Deb’s Phillys in honor of her late mother. “I decided to open a food truck, something that me and her have talked about for many years,” she wrote. “Unfortunately, we weren’t [able] to do it before her passing, so I kept her dream alive.”

Videos layered with hip-hop beats show customers eating Philly cheesesteak subs and french fries topped with bacon and ranch dressing. Johnson also appears in multiple videos.

The couple picked up high-profile support when Keith Lee, an influencer with over 17 million TikTok followers who tastes and critiques takeout dishes in his car, shouted out the food truck.

“In my opinion, amazing. Absolutely amazing,” Lee said in his video posted April 14. “I think, in my humble opinion, the best Philly cheesesteak I’ve had in a long time.”

“It’s Keith Lee-approved!” a Deb’s Philly Cheesesteak employee then cuts in. “You heard it first here!”

The food truck made regular visits to Fort Lauderdale, Sunrise and Riviera Beach as recently as late April, according to its online schedule.

The food truck’s last social-media post, on May 16, coincides with the date of Johnson and Dorvil’s arrest.

Also on May 16, a GoFundMe page was created titled “Help Deb’s Phillys Food Truck Recover” that stated an “emergency situation” caused them to “lose everything in our food truck and the truck itself.”

Roca said her husband Marco and son Marco Jr. lost both their hotel industry jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic, and on a whim decided to invest their “entire life savings” into opening the first two South Florida franchises of the Las Vegas-headquartered Capriotti’s Sandwich Shop.

But now, the loss of merchandise has forced her to close her 3-year-old North Miami Beach location on May 10, while Plantation is “barely holding on and losing money.” One North Miami Beach employee has lost their job, while two others agreed to relocate to the Plantation eatery.

Both Capriotti’s locations were insured, but not for alleged employee theft, she said.

“We’re trying to get out of our [North Miami Beach] lease now,” Roca said. “I don’t know how much longer I can hold on. I put all my heart into the people that I trust, and this still happened to me.”

Sun Sentinel features writer Phillip Valys can be reached at pvalys@sunsentinel.com or X at @philvalys.

Originally Published: June 3, 2025 at 3:24 PM EDT