Wage Theft Is Grim Business
Rory Lancman
If Al Capone introduced Americans to the seriousness of tax evasion, then hopefully Michael Grimm's indictment will do the same for the seriousness of wage theft.
For two years the federal government probed Congressman Grimm's campaign finances, focused on allegations that potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars were illegally funneled into his campaign through straw donors. The known details were nothing if not colorful (including a globe-trotting celebrity rabbi under investigation in Israel for bribery), like Congressman Grimm himself, who was caught on tape threatening to throw a local television reporter off the balcony in Congress -- but only after telling him, "I'll break you in half like a boy."
While two of Congressman Grimm's fundraisers were indicted, one for using straw donors to contribute more than $10,000 to Congressman Grimm's first election campaign, and another -- the rabbi's close aide -- for visa fraud, the government this week indicted Congressman Grimm for something else entirely: defrauding the government by, among other things, underreporting the wages he paid to employees of a health food restaurant before his election to congress, and perjuring himself in a civil lawsuit brought by employees who claimed to have been denied minimum wage and overtime pay.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rory-lancman/wage-theft-is-grim-business_b_5274170.html
