An expensive $1.Pizza and a $dollar ex Congressman collects favors to stay out of Jail: Rep.Grimm
An expensive $1. Pizza and a dollar ex Congressman Grimm collects favors to stay out of Jail
Image: flickr/Jason Lam
There might be a high cost for those dollar pizza slices.
A class-action lawsuit is charging the Jewish owners of New York City’s 2 Bros Pizza with putting employees through 60- to 70-hour workweeks for less than minimum wage and no overtime, the Daily News reported today.
Eli and Oren Halali and their father Joshua, who own the chain, “built their dollar pizza empire on the backs of my clients and other workers by grossly underpaying them,” the plaintiffs’ lawyer, Adam Slater, told the News. “It’s just unfair.”
But the Halalis’ lawyer denies it all. “2 Bros. pays its employees in compliance with city, state and federal law and categorically denies the claims made by the plaintiffs. 2 Bros. is confident that it will prevail on the merits, attorney Howard Davis of Meister Seelig & Fein LLP told the Forward in an e-mail.
It’s not the first time Eli Halali’s made news. In a 2012 Associated Press report on questionable contributions to disgraced former Staten Island Congressman Michael Grimm, Halali was identified as the agent of a company that distributed porn movies – and a close associate of controversial Rabbi Yoshiyahu Yosef Pinto. The Forward reported on a top Pinto aide’s porn links in 2011.{{When he announced his run for congress in the fall of 2009, then future Congressman Michael Grimm, then a political novice, sorely needed a rainmaker who could get the dollars flowing to his nascent campaign. He found one in an Israeli rabbi, Yoshiyahu Yosef Pinto.
Now, that fruitful association has turned into a big headache for the Staten Island Republican – one involving allegations of illegal donations, a bizarre blackmail claim and potentially embarrassing associations with people in the pornography business.}}
2 Bros, in the meantime, continues serving the cut-rate ‘za that won it top prize in a Cheap Dollar Slice Pizza Showdown from the blog SeriousEats.
Michael Kaminer
http://forward.com
Grimm collecting favors to keep out of jail:
Former Congressman Michael Grimm painted himself as a war hero, called on help from a Sandy victim and claimed he was a primary caregiver for ailing ex-Staten Island Borough President Guy Molinari in a desperate bid to avoid prison time.
A court filing that asks for probation in Grimm’s federal tax-fraud case includes testimony from the ex-congressman’s mom and Molinari, the Staten Island Advance reports.
“Michael may be one of the most caring and compassionate persons I have ever met,” wrote Molinari, 86. “In short, Michael has been one of my primary caretakers.”
Grimm also secured a character endorsement from Hurricane Sandy victim Patricia Dresch, who lost her husband and told of how Grimm helped her afterward.
The crooked pol, who will be sentenced on July 17, also talked up his combat experience as an Operation Desert Storm Marine.
NYpost
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