Posted on 08/17/2010 1:42:30 PM PDT by Beaten Valve
The owners of four Los Angeles car washes were each sentenced to a year in jail and are expected to have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid wages after pleading no contest to half a dozen criminal counts, authorities said Monday.
Benny and Nissan Pirian were charged by the city attorney's office in 2009 with 172 counts of violating criminal and labor laws for their treatment of workers. The original criminal complaint named four of their car wash businesses, including Celebrity Car Wash Inc. of Hollywood, Five Star Car Wash Inc. of Northridge, and Hollywood Car Wash Inc. and Vermont Hand Wash Inc. of Los Feliz.
On Friday, the brothers each entered a plea of no contest to six criminal counts, including conspiracy, grand theft and labor code violations, officials with the city attorney's office said. In addition to the jail time, the defendants will be placed on four years' probation and ordered to pay restitution to the victims in an amount to be decided at a future court future hearing.
To comply with the terms of probation, the brothers must keep payroll-, health- and safety-related records open for inspection at any time by the city attorney’s Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Department of Labor, the California Division of Labor Standards Enforcement and the California Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimesblogs.latimes.com ...
You could bust every car wash in Los Amgeles. I guess these guys pissed somebody off ;-)
Their careers are all washed up now.
Nissan owns a car wash? Who knew?
Yes, something is missing.
Almost all car wash owners in SoCal are Middle Eastern immigrants who violate all laws with impunity. They come from a culture of corruption with no respect for the rule of law. They all should go to jail and then be deported.
Pirian sounds Armenian, not middle eastern, (and likely Christian as well).
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/11/us/11carwash.html?_r=1&ref=us
February 10, 2009
LOS ANGELES — More than 500 carwashes here employ thousands of workers to soap and scrub millions of vehicles. On Tuesday, the city attorney accused the industry of systemic labor violations and charged three men with 176 counts of worker abuse at four family-owned carwashes.
... The complaint, filed in Superior Court, charges two brothers, Benny and Nissan Pirian, who own the four carwashes in the city and two others in Los Angeles County, with failing to pay $450,000 in wages over five years. They could face more than 80 years in jail and $136,000 in fines.
After some workers tried to form a union and filed a class-action lawsuit in May, a manager at the Pirian-owned Vermont Hand Wash in Los Feliz, Manuel Reyes, brandished a machete and held rounds of ammunition in his hand “to scare employees into silence,” prosecutors said.
...Nearly 40 workers, listed as John and Jane Does in the criminal complaint, said they were paid a flat rate of $35 to $40 for working more than eight hours a day with as little as 15 minutes a day for lunch.
6 of 1, half dozen of the other.
http://www.jewishjournal.com/community/article/car_wash_brothers_face_labor_abuse_charges_20090422/
Car Wash Brothers Face Labor Abuse Charges
By Karmel Melamed
Published on April 23, 2009
Since two local Iranian Jewish brothers were charged with a 176-count criminal complaint by the L.A. City Attorney’s Office in February for alleged labor law violations at their car washes, many area Iranian Jewish business owners are quietly expressing support for the pair. And some believe they are being singled out for political reasons.
The complaint alleges that Benny Pirian, 38, and Nissan Pirian, 31, the owners of four car washes in Northridge, Hollywood and Los Feliz, routinely refused to pay their workers minimum wage, failed to pay their workers overtime, prevented their workers from taking rest breaks and required their workers to purchase uniforms and equipment from them, in addition to other violations of state labor laws. The complaint also alleges that workers who attempted to unionize the car washes with the help of the AFL-CIO and the United Steelworkers were intimidated and harassed, and that a manager at one of the car washes brandished a machete and a club in two such union-busting incidents.
The City Attorney’s Office also alleges that the Pirians failed to provide medical attention to workers who were seriously injured by acid burns, deep puncture wounds and severe lacerations while on the job. If convicted on all counts, the Pirians could face more than 80 years in county jail and more than $1.25 million in fines and restitution.
What about the other 500 car washes? And that’s just in the city of LA?
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