South Shore restaurant owner charged in federal probe of labor practices

The owner of a pair of South Shore Italian eateries has been charged with civil contempt for ignoring demands to turn over employment records related to a federal investigation into his company's labor practices.

The U.S. Marshals Service Wednesday arrested Louis “Luigi” Prudente, owner of Il Vizio Restorante Italiano Corp., for repeatedly failing to provide information to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division, which said it's been investigating the business since May 2021. The matter, officials said, is not criminal and Prudente was not detained after his arrest.

Last month, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York in Central Islip certified that Prudente was still not in compliance with the department's records' requests and ordered that he be taken into custody until he produced the subpoenaed documents.

“The arrest of Il Vizio owner, Louis Prudente, shows that the U.S. Department of Labor will use every available instrument to gather the facts, enforce the law and ensure employers do not hold the law in contempt,” said U.S. Labor Department Regional Solicitor Jeffrey Rogoff in New York. “An employer’s refusal to comply with federal investigators is illegal and unacceptable.”

In an interview Thursday, Prudente, the owner of Il Vizio Broadway in Massapequa and Il Vizio Park in Massapequa Park, called the issue a "misunderstanding." Prudente said he's been in the process of sending the requested documents to the Labor Department but that the process was delayed as he changed attorneys and waited for records from his payroll company. The restaurants remain open.

"I'm short-staffed, so it's tough to work every day and set time aside to respond in a timely fashion," he said. " … I've already sent over some info that they were looking for that I had."

The Labor Department said it issued an administrative subpoena in July 2021 to determine if Prudente's pay practices complied with the Fair Labor Standards Act, but that he refused to supply the subpoenaed documents.

The Department’s Office of the Solicitor then obtained a court order directing Prudente to comply with the subpoena, officials said. The Solicitor then sought, and was granted, a motion holding Prudente in contempt and imposing a series of escalating fines, up to $500 per day, the department said.

“We cannot and will not allow employers to refuse to cooperate with investigators and withhold requested records in an attempt to evade their legal responsibilities without consequences," said Mark Watson Jr., the Labor Department's Wage and Hour Division Northeast Regional Administrator in Philadelphia.

By Robert Brodsky

robert.brodsky@newsday.com@BrodskyRobert

Robert Brodsky is a breaking news reporter who has worked at Newsday since 2011. He is a Queens College and American University alum.