Jail Time For Peekskill Home-Care Agency Owner Who Stiffed Workers

PEEKSKILL, NY — Arthur Anyah, owner of Mical Home Health Care Agency, Inc. has been sentenced to one year in jail for defrauding 67 employees out of over $135,000 in wages, Attorney General Schneiderman announced Wednesday.

Anyah, 67, had pleaded guilty in July to engaging in a scheme to induce health care workers to provide home health care services to the agency’s clients without pay, as well as falsifying business records, failing to pay wages, and defrauding the state unemployment insurance contribution system.

In addition to jail time, the Honorable Barry E. Warhit of the Westchester County Supreme Court ordered Anyah to pay full restitution of $135,161.79 in back wages owed to his employees and over $66,000 in state unemployment insurance fund contributions, as well as dissolve Mical, which has operated out of 12 N. Division St. (For more neighborhood stories like this, sign up for Patch’s daily newsletter, news alerts and updates.)

“New Yorkers employed in the home health care industry are among our most vulnerable workers, often receiving wages barely above the state’s minimum. It’s unconscionable that an employer would defraud them out of the pay they earned,” Schneiderman said in the announcement. “My office is dedicated to protecting workers against wage theft and to ensuring that employers contribute to the state unemployment insurance fund, which provides basic protections for all employees.”

Between December 2012 and June 2015, Anyah hired caregivers to assist patients who were elderly, sick, infirm, or disabled with basic daily needs such as bathing, getting dressed, and preparing their food.

However, an investigation conducted by the Attorney General’s office revealed that Anyah failed to pay the workers consistently. He kept promising the aides that they would eventually get paid. After numerous workers quit because they were not paid, Anyah hired new workers and subsequently failed to pay those workers for all of the hours they had already worked. Anyah induced those workers to continue to work despite not getting paid or only getting paid a fraction of what they were owed by promising them payment in the near future — which often did not happen.

In addition to failing to pay workers for all of their hours worked, Anyah created false tax documents, such as W-2 Forms, and reported wages that he never paid to the workers. Anyah also failed to pay the required quarterly New York State unemployment insurance contributions for all employees.

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