Manhattan’s “Saigon” and its despot leader have officially fallen.
The former owner of Manhattan’s popular Saigon restaurant chain will marinate in a city jail for the next couple of months, under his sentencing this morning on a massive Attorney General employee-abuse case. With good behavior, he’ll likely serve two months of a three-month sentence.
Simon Nget was led handcuffed to jail today more than two years after his and his wife Michelle were first exposed for their tyranny over their bicycling fleet of illegal-alien delivery workers.
The workers — most of them Chinese nationals — were paid as little as $520 a month while working 72-hour weeks at Saigon Grill at 620 Amsterdam Ave. and Saigon Spice at 91 University Place.
That works out to only $1.80 an hour.
In pleading guilty to felony falsifying business records and misdemeanor witness tampering and retaliation in October, 2009, Simon had admitted he cooked his wage books and fired workers who were outing him to the feds and organizing to fight him in civil court, according to court papers.
In its original 242-count indictment, the state’s allegations went still further.
Workers were “fined” by the Ngets if they were too busy with deliveries and couldn’t help package sauces, then-AG Andrew Cuomo charged.
Workers were forced to cash bogus paychecks in their names, and hand the cash back to the Ngets, so the couple could pretend to be paying legal wages, the complaint alleged.
Both Simon and Michelle were initially charged with all counts in the full indictment. Through a two-year plea negotiation process, Michelle’s charges were reduced to a misdemeanor, then dismissed entirely this morning.
Simon ducked his head to avoid a news photographer as he was led to jail. Michelle covered her head in a hood and sobbed as she left Manhattan Supreme Court.
“He’s lost everything,” said his lawyer, Robert Race. “He lost the business. He lost everything.” The restaurants are still running, though under new owners.
Under the terms of his plea, Simon and his corporations must pay back a total $47,600 restitution to the state department of labor, to compensate the unemployment insurance fund. He must pay an additional $84,500 in state taxes.
But the biggest hit was a landmark $4.6 million award to 36 deliverymen ordered by a federal judge in October, 2008,