http://www.mlive.com/news/citipat/index.sff?/base/news-22/1185617124218320.xml&col=3

Todoroff guilty of holding pay
Saturday, July 28, 2007
By Steven Hepker
shepker@citpat. com -- 768-4923
A Blackman Township restaurateur faces up to a year in jail for
strong-arming his teenage employees.

"He threatened, he intimidated, he followed through," District Judge
R. Darryl Mazur said Friday in convicting Kurt Todoroff of illegally
holding back payroll checks.
The case revolved around a Todoroff's Original Coney Island policy
of charging employees $20 for used shirts returned in disrepair, and
playing keep-away with their checks until the former employees paid.
"This is a disconcerting pattern of conduct," Mazur said.
Mazur dropped a 93-day misdemeanor in favor of a one-year
misdemeanor of failing to pay wages in a timely fashion.
He will sentence Todoroff on Sept. 4.
The charges stemmed from a complaint by Tyler Mills, 17, who said
Todoroff refused to give him his last paycheck in July 2006 because
he owed $20 for a damaged shirt.
Three other former employees testified they received the same
treatment, but all ultimately received their final checks. Mills
eventually received his $29 check for his last week, and did not pay
the $20.
Most disturbing to Mazur, Assistant Prosecutor Jennifer Lamp and the
parents of the teens was Todoroff's threats. Two parents who
approached Todoroff with their kids said Todoroff threatened "to
take me to the mat" if they complained to a government agency or
police.
"He said he'd call Childrens Protective Services and say we smoked
pot with Tyler," Todd Mills said of a confrontation with Todoroff.
Said John Heavey, stepfather to former employee Morgan Freed: "He
said he would make allegations from which I would never recover."

Lamp re-called Heavey and Todd Mills to the stand after Todoroff
testified he did not file false reports with Childrens Protective
Services.
Both men said welfare workers investigated them shortly after
Todoroff made threats. Heavey said social workers pulled his stepson
and daughter out of school, and ordered medical tests on the girl
for alleged abuse, while Todd Mills and Tyler's mother, Rhonda
Pickrell, were questioned about drug use.
The state Department of Human Services determined the complaints
were false, or lacked validity.
But the damage was done, Mazur said.
"It is the closest agency we have to the Gestapo in our society, and
that is what he unleashed on them," Mazur said.

Todoroff said that in six years he has hired 180 employees, and 170
quit or were fired. Of those who left, 10 returned shirts "that were
not serviceable, " and were charged $20 in keeping with his company
handbook. He said he did not penalize employees for normal wear.

They must sign a form indicating they will return the shirts in good
condition. Todoroff said if he levied a $20 fine for a ruined shirt,
he would destroy the shirt.
Three employees said Todoroff issued them shirts with stains and
holes, then charged them $20 when they quit, demanding they pay up
before he released their final check.
"I didn't realize shirts were going to be an issue," former employee
Erika Jakubas testified. She quit in 2002, at age 16, and turned in
shirts that had holes and bleach stains when she got them.

In what she described as a traumatic exchange, her mother gave
Todoroff $20 and he handed over her last check.

Jason Anderson, a former assistant manager, testified he traded a
worn-out shirt for a nicer shirt befitting a manager.
When he resigned, Todoroff charged him $20 and threatened to report
him for stealing a good shirt, Anderson said.
Anderson called police, then settled the matter after a heated
debate.
"After 10 minutes of arguing, I got my check," Anderson said.