Felix Portorreal with “perp” wall of shame. (Robert Kalfus)
A Bronx mom says she went shopping for groceries — and wound up serving hard labor.
Tammy Flores, 49, is suing her local Foodtown supermarket for $3.25 million, alleging that after employees there accused her of shoplifting last Jan. 29, she was made to rip apart boxes and other acts of forced labor for five hours.
In two Bronx Supreme Court lawsuits, one in her name and one in her daughter’s, filed last week, Flores claims a store manager ordered her and her 11-year-old daughter into the basement to work off the alleged theft, for which no police report was filed.
“The man was staring at me like he wanted to kill me,” Flores said, describing the manager of the Gerard Avenue supermarket located in the shadow of Yankee Stadium.
The manager, who is unidentified in the court papers, manically walked around the basement kicking boxes and screaming, “Clean this! Clean this!” and allegedly made her rip up dozens of boxes for recycling by hand without gloves or knife, she claims.
“It was box after box,” she claimed. “I felt trapped. I couldn’t breathe. I was trembling. I didn’t know what was going to happen. I felt like a prisoner.”
In all, Flores claims she suffered “indignity, humiliation, shame and disgrace” in the basement before she was released, according to the suit.
In the other suit, Flores’ 11-year-old daughter, Majeek, claims that she, too, was detained in the basement before being sent home alone not knowing when her mother would return. She was not forced to work.
But before the daughter was kicked out, the manager allegedly bellowed: “Your mother is a thief and you’re a thief, too!”
“My daughter was terrified,” Flores added. “He looked like the devil — his face was as red as a tomato.”
Store manager Felix Portorreal told The Post the allegations are baseless and he has no memory of Flores or her daughter.
He said he catches three or four shoplifters a week and always calls the cops after taking their photographs for evidence, even keeping them on his wall.
“We don’t do that over here,” he said, referring to forced servitude.
Flores denies she ever shoplifted at the store.
She said she had purchased other food items at another store earlier and thinks the manager mistakenly thought she shoved a purloined tomato and a jar of salsa into her bag.
The owners of the Foodtown, who are named in the lawsuit, did not return messages left at their Mount Vernon, Westchester, headquarters.