“He told me this is a good check. ‘She is my employee. There is nothing wrong to cash it.’ So I cash it, and seeing how he is in town and in business, I thought everything is okay. Then the check bounced. The bank said insufficient funds.”
After the notice of insufficient funds, Aslam said he called Leard up and asked him for payment in full. Leard promised to meet him two days later at his AAA Quick Mart, but never showed, Aslam said. After several unsuccessful attempts to contact Leard, Aslam said he went to Basil’s Trattoria and confronted him directly.
“I said, ‘If you don’t want to pay me, fine. Don’t make up stories,’” Aslam recalled. Over the course of several weeks, Aslam said Leard paid him $300 in cash. The last payment of $100 arrived on Jan. 12. But for the past six weeks, Aslam said his attempts to recover the difference of $366 have proved futile.
Aslam said the restaurant employee, Reba Rogers, returned to the Quick Mart several weeks after the check bounced and asked for a photocopy of the check.
Aslam said he will have to ask Rogers for the difference if he cannot recover the money from Leard. In the meantime, he’s lost a regular customer.
“Reba was my regular customer all the time, and now she doesn’t show up,” he said. Leard said he doesn’t mind paying Aslam the difference of $366, but he accused Rogers of forging his name on the check.
Leard has also accused Rogers and her husband, James, also a former Basil’s employee, of stealing checks, and said his attorney had filed criminal charges against them. “People ought to watch themselves,” Leard said. “What they’re doing is getting themselves involved in a ballgame. I will go after them, and when I go after them, it will get ugly.”
A check of criminal and civil records at the Forsyth and Guilford County courthouses reveals that to date, no charges have been filed against either Reba or James Rogers. However, a number of judgments filed against Leard appear in court records in both counties. In 1998, US Foodservice
Corporation filed a judgment for $7,952 against Leard and Pinot’s Restaurant. In 1999, WMAG- FM filed a judgment for $3,000 against Leard and Pinot’s restaurant.
In 2002, the US Internal Revenue Service filed a judgment of $42,163 against Leard. Between 2002 and 2004, the NC State Department of Revenue filed three separate judgments against Leard totaling nearly $21,000. In 2004, PYA Monarch filed a judgment of $3,117 against Leard.
Leard said the aforementioned judgments came as a result of Pinots, his former restaurant, closing. However, the list goes on. In 2005, Original Triad Door Company filed a judgment for $627 against Leard, who said he would not pay the debt. In 2006, Moses H. Cone Hospital filed a judgment against Leard for $130,580.
Leard explained the debt to the hospital resulted from his wife suffering two brain aneurisms in 2002, and the fact that his health insurance provider dropped his coverage. In 2008, Invisible Fence filed a judgment for $790. Leard said he is making payments to satisfy that debt. Last year, TVM Mowing and Lawn filed a judgment against Leard for $188. Leard said he would not pay that debt. Most recently, on Feb. 16, All Fresh Produce filed a judgment against Leard in Forsyth County for $1,041.
According to court documents, Leard filed for bankruptcy on three separate occasions — May 2001, April 2002 and January 2003. Each time court records indicate Leard was reinstated from bankruptcy, but he suffered a foreclosure of his home in 2003. A number of other businesses have filed judgments against Leard over the past 10 years but according to court records, he has failed to make a single payment to any of his creditors.
Leard claims he has made payments to his creditors, which the court records don’t reflect. Former Basil’s employee Lori Rucinski said her personal story mirrors Aslam’s experience. Rucinski said Leard still owes her $648. On Dec. 30, Rucinski said she quit her job at Basil’s after receiving an eviction notice the day before. On her last day at Basil’s, Rucinski asked Leard to be paid for back wages. For the past two months, Rucinski said Leard has strung her along with promises to pay, promises that have gone unfulfilled.
“Every time he’ll say, ‘Get up with me tomorrow,’ or ‘I’ll pay you tomorrow’ and when tomorrow comes, he comes up with another excuse why he can’t pay you,” Rucinski said. Leard promised to pay Rucinski $499 on Feb. 20. Rucinski said she disputed the amount, claiming she is owed $648, but agreed to meet with Leard. Once again, Leard failed to keep his promise. On Feb. 21, Rucinski received a text message from Leard which reads, “I am not going to lie to u; I looked online this morning several checks came through last night only left me with 50 dollars in account after tonight.”
Rucinski said Leard paid her $100 in cash on Feb. 23. Leard confirmed the transaction, and
acknowledged he still owes Rucinski for back wages. Still, Lori’s
mother, Lynn, said the numerous times Lori’s attempt to collect money
from Scott and come away empty handed has “put a strain on everybody.”
“Where
is all this money he’s bringing in going?” Lynn asked. Lauren Campbell,
another former Basil’s server, said she can attest to Leard’s methods
of evasion when it comes to paying his employees. And Basil’s employees
aren’t the only ones getting stiffed, she said. “On any given day while
working, people would show up, stand at the front of the restaurant for
hours waiting for their money,” Campbell said. “Plumbers, electricians,
past servers, each would just wait to be handed unmarked envelope with
a check presumably inside. They would stand there as Scott made excuse
after excuse why he couldn’t pay them or just ignore them — anything
just to make them go away. He fired people for unclear reasons or
simply told them they weren’t needed. But we have not been paid. We all
have bounced checks. We are searching a way to hold [him] accountable,
to get the paychecks we are owed, but nothing has worked.”
Campbell
said she has pursued every possible method of recourse to recoup the
more than $700 in back wages Leard owes her. Campbell said she
contacted a number of state and federal agencies, and she was told to
file a complaint with the NC Wage and Hour Bureau.
Campbell
said she spoke with a representative from the Department of Labor’s
Employment Discrimination Bureau, who then called Leard and asked him
about her claim of wages owed. The representative informed Campbell
that Leard said he only owed her $180. Campbell disputed Leard’s claim,
telling the representative she had kept records of every day she
worked.
“She said that didn’t prove anything. I asked her if
she had inquired why he hadn’t paid me the $180 after more than a
month. She seemed irritated by the question and simply replied, ‘No,’”
Campbell said. Leard confirmed that he had spoken with the Department
of Labor representative and agreed to pay Campbell $180. Leard said he
did not have to pay Campbell her $545 in tips because she averaged more
than $6.50 an hour between her $2.13 hourly rate and tips. Jim Taylor,
director of the NC Wage and Hour Bureau, said Leard’s claim has no
basis in fact. Taylor
said according to state law, even if a tip-pooling arrangement exists
in a restaurant, the employer must make ensure their servers get 85
percent of their tips. In addition, servers must claim their tips at
the end of each week.
Campbell
said the reason she kept her own records is that Basil’s employees were
instructed by Leard to write down their hours in a three-subject
notebook rather than punch a time clock. Campbell said she never signed
any IRS forms like a W-4 or I-9 employment eligibility form during her
time at Basil’s and to this day, she has not received a W-2 form for
2008. Rucinski corroborated Campbell’s claims, stating that employees
handwrote their hours in a notebook and toward the end of her
employment, Leard and his manager, Chip Williams, kept the hours.
Rucinski said she saved all receipts and kept meticulous records of her
hours because she didn’t trust Leard’s accounting methods. Rucinski
said server numbers were not assigned and servers had to keep track of
their own tips. In the same notebook, servers wrote in tips claimed,
Rucinski said. Upon starting at Basil’s, employees wrote down their
name, address, Social Security number and number of deductions they
wanted to claim, but employees never signed any IRS paperwork, Rucinski
said. Rucinski said to her knowledge, no one she worked with has
received a W-2 form for 2008. Campbell said she consulted with a local
attorney who told her the cost of pursuing a judgment against Leard
would cost her $500 to $700 in attorney’s fees. On Feb. 19, Campbell
said she spoke with the Department of Labor, and was told that normally
employees who make claims for non-payment eventually settle.
“Why
should I have to settle for injustice?” Campbell asked. “How can we
keep allowing this to continue? I don’t see a point in spending money
on a long trial and wasting more time. I’ve already given Leard all the
time and money I’m willing to.” For his part, Leard said he will pay
every former employee the money they are owed. However, with each
passing day, Rucinski said becomes more and more pessimistic about
getting her back wages.
Still, she hopes by telling her story it might dissuade others who would consider working for Leard or Basil’s Trattoria.
“I
would really love to see that nobody else gets hurt by [Leard], and I
could definitely use the money that I’m owed,” she said. “I would also
like for everyone who has been hurt by him to get paid and just be done
with it. It is highly unlikely that any of us will ever get paid, and
it’s a shame because we worked our asses off for him and his
restaurant.”
“People ought to watch themselves. What they’re doing is getting themselves involved in a ballgame. I will go after them, and when I go after them, it will get ugly.”— SCOTT LEARD owner-operator Basil’s Trattoria restaurant
Lauren Campbell deposited a check written by restaurant owner-operator Scott Leard, and a week later it was returned due to insufficient funds. Campbell said it was the first of two bad checks Leard wrote her for back wages, which caused her bank to levy several overdraft charges against her. Campbell said Leard still owes her more than $700 in back wages and tips.
katiebug
