Uptown Restaurant Workers Win More Than $200K In Stolen Wages: AG

WASHINGTON HEIGHTS, NY — Owners of Washington Heights' Parrilla Latin Bistro pleaded guilty to wage theft and agreed to pay stolen wages owed to 10 of the restaurant's employees, State Attorney General Letitia James announced.

Restaurant owners Manuel Hernandez, Jose Hernandez, Gino Hernandez and longtime manager Mohammed Harb failed to pay employees the minimum wage and proper overtime in a scheme that resulted in the theft of more than $200,000 in wages, according to the attorney general's office. As part of the restaurant owners' guilty plea, they agreed to pay $203,000 to the 10 workers and an additional $10,655 to the state Department of Labor.

"There is no tolerance for stealing hard-earned money from working New Yorkers," James said in a statement. "My office aggressively fought on behalf of workers who fell victim to the greed and exploitative acts of their employers."

None of the plea agreements included additional jail time, state prosecutors said.

Charges were brought against the owners of Parilla Latin Bistro in March as the result of an investigation into the restaurant conducted by the attorney general's labor bureau, state officials said. The probe found that workers such as servers and cooks at Parilla were paid less than the minimum wage between 2014 and 2019 and were paid by day rather than by hour. Some employees were unpaid and none of the workers at the restaurant were compensated at an overtime rate if they worked more than 40 hours in a week, according to the attorney general's office.

When workers would ask for their pay, owners would offer them false promises and tell them to be patient, state prosecutors said. Some workers even moved on to other jobs before being paid for their work at Parilla, and were always told that they would eventually be compensated at a later date that never arrived.

Parilla Latin Bistro eventually closed in February 2019, a month before charges were brought against business owners, state prosecutors said.