NEW YORK, May 8 (RAPSI) - Michael Levitis, the owner of New York's most famous Russian restaurant, Rasputin has been charged with fraud alongside Mission Settlement Agency, a debt reduction company, the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York announced Tuesday.

Levitis and three other Mission Settlement Agency employees - Denis Kurlyand, Boris Shulman and Manuel Cruz - are suspected of having set up a fraud scheme which swindled more than 1,200 people out of millions of dollars, US Attorney for the Southern District Preet Bharara said in a statement.

According to the prosecutors, the agency took fees from clients for debt settlement services it never actually rendered. It also acted as the middle man, collecting payments from clients which were supposed to be passed on to their creditors.

According to the indictment, to achieve his plans, Levitis also claimed an affiliation with the federal government.

In April, Levitis, who is also a registered lawyer, had his license to practice law in New York suspended for six months for giving false testimony in a bribery case against former Senator Carl Kruger.

Levitis and his wife also starred in the Lifetime reality series Russian Dolls, a program which was strongly criticized by the Brooklyn Russian diaspora for creating a negative and exaggerated image of Russian immigrants.