West Hempstead Restaurateur Accused Of Underpaying Almost $60K In Employee Wages, DA Says

MINEOLA, NY — A West Hempstead restaurateur is facing grand larceny and scheme to defraud charges Thursday after he was accused of underpaying multiple employees’ wages and scamming them out of $50,000 by promising fake ownership stakes in the business, prosecutors said.

Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly said Thursday that Mahmut “Max” Unver and the Red Lions Food Corp., doing business as Anatolia Mediterranean & Grill, had been arraigned and charged with second-degree grand larceny, first-degree scheme to defraud, two counts of failure to pay wages under labor law and a count of willful failure to pay contributions. Unver pleaded not guilty and is due back in court Apr. 27, and could face up to 15 years in prison if found guilty, prosecutors said. Patch attempted to reach reach Unver’s attorney, Joseph Grasso, and Red Lions’ attorney, Mitchell Elman, for comment Thursday.

The district attorney said the charges stemmed from accusations made by two employees, one who worked for the restaurant from May to December of 2025 and another who worked there from May through October of the same year.

According to prosecutors, Unver owed the first employee, a man, $1,500 per week for the work he performed between May 15, 2025 and Dec. 31, 2025, but only paid the man $4,200. The second employee, prosecutors said, worked as a server and busser between May 15 and Oct. 31, 2025, at an agreed-upon wage of $1,000 per week. She was only paid $913, prosecutors said, after working 11 hours per day, six days per week during that timespan. Prosecutors said she should have been paid $25,157 under minimum wage law. In total, prosecutors said Unver was charged with underpaying about $58,357 in wages.

In another incident, for which Unver is also facing criminal charges, prosecutors said Unver drew up handwritten agreements that would make the employees part owners of Red Lions Food Corp., offering the man a 50 percent stake initially and then offering the man and woman a 25 percent stake each, provided they paid him $50,000.

The employees paid him the $50,000, were never recorded as part owners, and were fired in November and December of 2025 when they complained about not being paid, prosecutors said.

“For the second time in as many years, this restaurant owner allegedly determined that New York State wage laws simply did not apply to his business or his employees,” said DA Donnelly. “Unver allegedly paid his employees only a fraction of what they were owed by law and through the agreements they made with him. Adding even further insult, this defendant also allegedly made these employees empty promises of an ownership stake in his business, just to pull the rug out from underneath them – firing them both and stealing their $50,000 supposed investment. We will vigorously prosecute both wage theft cases and work to make these victims whole.”

Prosecutors said Unver never paid back the $50,000, and that his company is being charged with failure to pay unemployment insurance contributions between Dec. 1, 2024 and Dec. 31, 2025. Prosecutors said Unver had underpaid those contributions by $2,196.

This is the second time Unver has been charged with underpayment in as many years, after being charged with over $60,000 in underpaid wages over a seven month period between September of 2023 and April of 2024, prosecutors said.