From the San Francisco Examiner:
The City Attorney’s Office has sued a chef who allegedly tricked recent immigrants into paying up to $4,000 for job training, then had them working catering events without pay on the false promise of future employment.
The lawsuit claims that chef Angelo Mueller used local nonprofits to refer culinary students to his Academie de Cuisine, which he said was a prestigious establishment in Montecito in Southern California. The address he provided actually belonged to a pizza restaurant.
According to the lawsuit, about 50 students paid $2,000 to $4,000 last fall for culinary training that took place in two offices in The City. Classes were allegedly conducted without regard to the English skills of the students, many of whom were Chinese immigrants.
Former instructor Randy Wei said the students were made to sign waivers stating that they would work catering events for free.
When it became clear that they would not be getting their paid “externship,” nine of the students took the matter to Sing Tao Daily, a local Chinese newspaper, in February. The suit said the school then threatened the students with lawsuits if they did not apologize.
As Angry Asian Man points out, Mueller specifically targeted likely impoverished Chinese immigrants for this free labor. Reprehensible beyond words, to be sure.
Read more here at the San Francisco Examiner.
Here’s a great article about a North Korean woman who’s opened a restaurant in Northern Virginia. Also, she was a spy for North Korea at one point. Are we kidding? Nope. And it looks like things are working well on many levels, too:
recently became available on DVD). But hey, it’s your money. The movie opens in theaters on Thursda