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The employer is also charged with submitting false statements to the Workers' Compensation Board and the Department of
Labor.
The Attorney General's office says Atmi Kurtishi, 48, president of Madrit's Gourmet Restaurant, Inc., which operates
"Madrit's Pronto Pizza" at 55 West 55th Street, New York, failed to have Workers' Compensation insurance while employing
more than five employees, in violation of the new Workers' Compensation Law that makes such actions a class E felony,
punishable by up to four years in prison.
The Attorney General and the New York State Department of Labor also charged Kurtishi with 13 counts of fraud, all class
E felonies, for allegedly lying to state agencies by filing false documentation. Kurtishi further allegedly failed to
pay his workers overtime wages in the amount of $88,350.55, a class A misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in jail.
In addition to paying back the workers the wages they earned, Kurtishi also faces fines and penalties of over $100,000.
"Mr. Kurtishi's decision to line his pockets with money, instead of providing his workers with the wages and benefits
they earned, shows a blatant disregard for New York State's Workers' Compensation and labor laws," said Attorney General
Andrew Cuomo. "Today's arrest sends a clear message that my office will aggressively prosecute all employers who seek to
make their profits on the backs of their workers."
"This arrest is a striking example of how far the state is willing to go to reverse years of lax enforcement and protect
the basic rights of workers under the labor law," said New York State Commissioner of Labor M. Patricia Smith. "This
Joint Enforcement Task Force is a powerful and unprecedented tool that will seek out employers who misclassify and cheat
their workers out of required pay, benefits and protections."
"At its core, Workers' Compensation is a mutually beneficial agreement between employers and their employees," New York
State Workers' Compensation Board Chair Zachary Weiss said. "When an employer doesn't live up to that agreement and
endangers the well-being of their employees, New York will hold them accountable for their actions."
Kurtishi operated his business from at least March 31, 2004 until Nov. 1, 2007 without paying Workers' Compensation
coverage for his employees, prosecutors say. In 2006, the Workers' Compensation Board notified Kutrishi that it had
assessed a fine in the amount of $15,000 for his failure to maintain coverage. To avoid the fine, Kurtishi allegedly
sent the Workers' Compensation Board a letter falsely stating that his business had no employees.
In addition to his false submission to the Workers' Compensation Board, Kurtishi allegedly under-reported the number of
employees in his quarterly tax filings to the State, and thereby avoided paying contributions to the Unemployment
Insurance Fund for most of his workers. Unemployment insurance provides temporary income for eligible workers who become
unemployed through no fault of their own and who are ready, willing, and able to work.
If an employer does not pay into the fund, it can be extremely difficult for a worker to access those benefits. Having
failed to pay his share, mandated by law, Kurtishi put his workers and their families in jeopardy and cheated taxpayers,
who pay ever higher amounts to keep the system working.
This is the third arrest under New York's new Workers' Compensation Law, which became effective on April 12, 2007, and
the latest arrest in a series of actions brought by the Attorney General to protect workers. Recently, he secured the
arrest of two employers, one in the Capital region and the other in New York City, for failure to secure Workers'
Compensation coverage for more than five employees.
In July of this year, Cuomo secured the arrest and arraignment of two contractors who kept more than $500,000 in wages
from 84 construction workers for work performed on public construction projects throughout New York City. Earlier this
year, Cuomo recovered over $1,000,000 for hundreds of Bronx construction workers who were shortchanged out of overtime
pay.
This is the first criminal prosecution resulting from investigations conducted by the Joint Enforcement Task Force on
Employee Misclassification, which was established by an Executive Order in September 2007 to address the problems caused
by off-the-books employment and the misclassification of employees as independent contractors.
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NEW YORK - The owner of a popular midtown pizza restaurant has been arrested for failing to secure Workers' Compensation
coverage, pay overtime wages and make required contributions to the State Unemployment Insurance Fund.