The owner of famed Manhattan pizzeria Grimaldi’s was indicted Thursday on charges alleging he regularly refused to pay employees and stiffed them when he did.
Anthony Piscina, 63, and the manager of his Flatiron offshoot, Frank Santora, 71, pleaded not guilty in Manhattan Supreme Court to one count of scheme to defraud and seven counts of failure to pay wages for allegedly withholding $20,000 owed to seven employees at Grimaldi’s Coal Brick-Oven Pizzeria on Sixth Ave near W. 20th St. Both were released on their own recognizance.
“Please, I have an emergency. My grandmother died. I need my money, please,” read a text message Piscina received from one unpaid worker, among several read aloud by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg at a press conference.
“I sure need money to pay my rent. Please,” read another text.
Bragg said the messages were among dozens obtained by prosecutors showing employees pleading with the pizzeria owner to pay them what they were owed.
“We allege that for years, Grimaldi’s pizzeria owner Anthony Piscina and Manhattan manager Frank Santora schemed to defraud at least seven workers, pizza makers, salad preppers, bus boys and dish washers of … wages that they were entitled to for doing an honest day’s work,” Bragg said. “Wages that, as these text messages make devastatingly clear, were desperately, desperately needed.”
According to the DA’s office, one busboy alone is owed $8,000 from his former boss. Prosecutors say Piscina and Santora, who appeared on “Fox & Friends” last summer to complain about a crackdown on wood-fired pizza ovens, strung their employees along amid not paying them, whether by giving them paychecks that bounced, paying them partially on money-sending apps, scheduling appointments to pay them and then standing them up, or paying them less than minimum wage.
“I’ve got three complaints on me. The state is not gonna do a thing,” Piscina is quoted telling one employee who threatened to call a lawyer, who he allegedly also prohibited from wearing a cap with an America flag because he wasn’t born in the U.S.
Prosecutors quote Piscina in another piece of correspondence with a different employee of six years saying, “I owe you $4,559,” noting that worker was never paid.
An attorney for Piscina and Santora, Gerard Marrone, could not immediately be reached for comment.
