Metro

Restaurant bookkeeper charged with stealing nearly $100,000 from employer

The ex-bookkeeper for a $450-a-dinner Columbus Circle Japanese restaurant apparently likes it raw at home, too.

Rafael Thomas, 41, was charged with stealing almost $100,000 from his employer, Masa in the Time Warner Center, and blowing half of it on “live internet adult entertainment,” said Assistant District Attorney Jose Fanjul in Manhattan Supreme Court today.

He was indicted on one count of grand larceny in the second degree and 20 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree.

Thomas worked at the outrageously pricey sushi joint from January 2011 to February 2012, when his manager stumbled across missing payroll records, prosecutors alleged.

“He slowly started taking $100 to $200 of the top,” of daily proceeds from the pricey restaurant, which he solely oversaw, and eventually quadrupled his $52,000 salary, Fanjul alleged.

Well-healed diners must book a month ahead to salivate over the three-star Michelin hotspot’s Kobe-bee sukiyaki and deep-sea snapper.

The bookkeeper also reportedly manipulated records to cover his tracks, according to Fanjul.

“The defendant started to cash corporate checks that were made out to ‘cash’…at several banks throughout the city,” Fanjul said. He then allegedly used QuickBooks software to credit the expenses as food and uniform costs.

Thomas was fired for allegedly cooking the books in February, after which the Manhattan district attorney’s office says it traced the illicit funds to his checking account and found he allegedly spent $52,000 for online porn. The hefty theft spanned a six-month period, Fanjul told Justice Ronald Zweibel at Thomas’ arraignment today.

Fanjul called Thomas “a flight risk” because he’s a bachelor facing eviction.

Defense attorney Eric Orzick noted that his client had no criminal record.

“He never attempted to flee. He never attempted to hide anything,” Orzick told the judge in arguing for bail, “Obviously he could have and would have expected this was coming.” Orzick added that Thomas’ mom lives in Long Island.

Thomas, a bespectacled, balding man who appeared in court wearing a green Jets hoodie, pleaded not guilty and was held on $50,000 bail.

His next court appearance is Feb. 7.