Port Food Manufacturer Pleads Guilty

Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice along with her office's Labor Unit secured a top-count guilty plea from a Port Washington food production factory for underpaying workers, withholding benefits, violating state tax law, and collecting kickbacks from employees.

In a case referred to the D.A. by the United States Department of Labor (USDOL), , located on South Bayles Avenue, pleaded guilty to a felony count of Falsifying Business Records in the First Degree, three misdemeanor counts of Offering a False Instrument for Filing in the Second Degree, three misdemeanor counts of Wilful Failure to Pay Contributions to the New York State Unemployment Insurance Fund and two misdemeanor counts of Failure to Pay Wages on Time.

The Labor Unit, which was founded in the District Attorney's office in 2006, was assisted in the investigations by the Bureau of Special Investigations of the New York State Department of Labor and the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance. The unit investigates cases involving Prevailing Wage Fraud, Workers Compensation Fraud, Payroll Tax Fraud, Child Labor Violations, Failure to Pay Wages and Failure to Pay Overtime and has a 100 percent conviction rate.

"Labor regulations are in place to protect workers so that they can provide for their families and maintain a quality of life," Rice said. "When management steals from its own employees, it is our responsibility to see that they don't get away with it. My office's Labor Unit is committed to ensuring that each worker gets every penny that they earned through their hard work."

Rice said that in 2006, Bombay entered into an agreement with the United States Department of Labor to pay 10 employees more than $27,000 in unpaid wages. The USDOL learned in March 2009, however, that Bombay had in fact never paid several of the employees and had issued forged documents to the USDOL claiming that it had.

A search warrant executed at Bombay's Port Washington location revealed that Bombay was paying some of its workers off the books and in the recent past had paid wages as low as $4.50 per hour, well below the state minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. A USDOL audit revealed that between February 2007 and August 2009, Bombay had underpaid its employees by more than $219,000. Bombay must pay that amount in back wages, as well as a $10,000 fine.

Bombay's owner, Sanjiv Mody, 39, of Manhasset Hills, pleaded guilty to Wilful Failure to Pay Contributions to the New York State Unemployment Insurance Fund and two counts of Failure to Pay Wages on Time, all misdemeanors. He must pay a $1,500 fine and was sentenced to a conditional discharge, obligating him to comply with the terms of a consent judgment he entered into with the USDOL. Mody and Bombay Kitchen Foods, Inc. are represented by Steven Cohn, Esq. Assistant District Attorney William Dempsey of the Labor Unit handled the case for the DA's Office.

"We are proud to have been able to reach this productive result in coordination with the Nassau DA's office," said Irv Miljoner, District Director for the USDOL Wage and Hour Division. "The action taken by the Wage and Hour Division in this particular case exemplifies our commitment to achieve industry-wide compliance with Federal labor standards laws that we enforce on behalf of vulnerable workers."