Home Care Agency Owners Arrested for Failing to Pay Workers
Owners of a Bronx home care agency are facing felony charges after allegedly failing to pay more than 60 home health aides their full wages.
Maria Etim and Charles Mayers of Yonkers, N.Y., the owners of Concept Home Care Inc., were arraigned in Bronx Supreme Court (pictured) on January 9.
Along with Concept Home Care’s manager, Wayne Patterson of Brooklyn, Etin and Mayers are being charged with two felonies — first-degree fraud and failing to pay workers’ compensation insurance for their employees — and 20 additional misdemeanors.
They face up to four years in prison.
According to New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, the defendants routinely withheld wages from 62 home health aides between 2009 and 2013.
If their workers complained about not being paid in full, the defendants would promise to eventually pay the money they owed them.
Over the course of four years, the amount of unpaid wages totaled nearly $96,000. The attorney general’s Labor Bureau has filed a civil forfeiture lawsuit to recoup those lost wages to the workers who earned them.
— by Matthew Ozga
