Celebrity chef Mario Batali and his business partner must pay $5.25 million for stealing from their own employees:
As many as 1,100 waiters, bartenders, captains and other staff members of his New York restaurants including Babbo and Del Posto may be compensated, the Associated Press reports.
The class-action suit was filed in a Manhattan federal court in 2010, with claims that Batali and Bastianich had a standard policy of deducting as much as 4 to 5 percent of the tip pool each night. [WaPo]
That’s illegal.
The WaPo quotes food columnist Jonathan Gold saying that this won’t damage Batali’s image in the industry because he’s such a gifted chef.
Of course, if Batali had gotten caught stealing from investors, his career would be over.
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