NYC restaurant owners charged with cooking books to hide wage violations for immigrant workers
"Prosecutors charged the owners of a group of Vietnamese restaurants Wednesday with allegedly cooking their books to hide the pay and hours of immigrant workers, sending a stern warning to eateries that commit similar violations.
Simon and Michelle Nget, owners of the Saigon Grill restaurant group, are accused of failing to pay legal wages to dozens of employees at their popular Vietnamese restaurants in Manhattan and then fabricating records to conceal the violations.
In some cases, the restaurant tried to make it look like workers were being paid legally by having them cash regular paychecks, prosecutors said. Once the check cleared, however, the workers were required to give the money back, they said.
Over time, employees were cheated out of millions of dollars, officials said, adding that the state's unemployment insurance program was also cheated."
DAVID B. CARUSO and SAMUEL MAULL for the Associated Press.