New York City pizzeria owner, manager charged with stealing wages from employees
NEW YORK -- A popular New York City pizzeria has been charged with stealing thousands of dollars in wages from several employees.
District Attorney Alvin Bragg announced the indictment of the owner of Grimaldi's Pizzeria, as well as a manager.
There were very few words from pizzeria owner Anthony Piscina and manager Frank Santora as they walked out of the courtroom Thursday.
The pair is accused of stealing more than $20,000 in wages from at least seven employees working at the Grimaldi's along Sixth Avenue.
"We allege that Grimaldi's gave their employees paychecks that bounced, convinced their employees to continue working through partial payments via financial acts ... offered employees far less than what is required under the New York state minimum wage law ... and time and time again failed to pay their workers any wages all together," Bragg said.
Bragg showcased text messages he says workers sent to their Grimaldi employer, begging to be paid.
"Pizza makers, salad preppers, busboys and dishwashers of more than $20,000 worth of wages. Wages that they were entitled to for doing an honest day's work. Wages that, as these text messages make devastatingly clear, were desperately, desperately needed," Bragg said.
Bragg read a series of text messages from one employee.
On Jan. 4, the employee texted, "Hi sir. can you pay me my payment today. from 2 weeks I need money please." They received a response saying, "Yes today." The employee replied, "please thanks."
Over a week later, on Jan. 13, the employee texted, "can you pay me today please." There was no response. One week later, they asked again, "can you pay me today please," and again did not receive a response.
On Monday, Jan. 23, they texted, "hello sir tony [sic] today I went to the bank I went to change my check that they gave me on Saturday and they told me it has no fund."
The DA's office adds majority of the victims were Spanish-speaking employees.
Piscina and Santora are now charged with scheme to defraud and seven counts of failure to pay wages. Gerard Marrone, a lawyer representing both defendants, says the case is a misunderstanding.
"My clients run multiple locations of Grimaldi's Famous Pizza, and they probably don't even know. They have a payroll company that does the work for them, so they were totally unaware of any of this," he said.
Both the owner of Grimaldi's and the manager have pled not guilty. They're due back in court May 1.
Bragg says he believes there could be more victims and encourages any Grimaldi's worker whose wages may have been stolen to contact the city's Worker Protection Unit.