Fil-Am resto owner faces 6-month sentence for wage theft

A Filipino-American restaurant owner faces six months in jail for failing to pay $47,000 (P2.3 million) in wages to her employees in Port Chester, New York.

Elisa Parto, owner of Elisa’s Food and Plus, allegedly deprived six employees of their minimum wages and overtime pay between 2012 and 2014, the State Attorney General’s Office said on Tuesday, according to The Journal News.

Porto has paid back $21,000 (P1 million) from the sum but still has to pay $26,000 (P1.3 million) by June 5 in order to escape the six-month sentence. Officials claimed that one employee was even forced to render 70 hours a week without being duly paid.

She pleaded guilty back in December 2015 and was instructed to pay back the said wages.

Porto was initially scheduled to serve her sentence on March 10, 2016, but did not appear and was arrested by the police. In a second attempt, she did not show up the following month and spent a week in jail for violating her bail conditions.  Gianna Francesca Catolico /ra