For the second time in two years, Mahmut Unver, owner of Anatolia Mediterranean & Grill, was charged with underpaying his employees and failing to contribute to unemployment insurance.
Unver also allegedly scammed two employees out of $50,000 and fired them after promising ownership stake in the restaurant, according to Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly. Unver was arrested on April 8.
Unver and his company, Red Lions Food Corp., which operates as Anatolia Mediterranean & Grill, and a third co-defendant, John Yilmaz, were also charged in November 2024 with allegedly underpaying several employees by more than $60,000 from September 2023 to April 2024 and for failing to pay $13,989 in unemployment insurance contributions to New York State. These 2024 cases were indicted in January 2026.
“For the second time in as many years, this restaurant owner allegedly determined that New York State wage laws simply did not apply to his business or his employees,” Donnelly said in a news release.
“Unver allegedly paid his employees only a fraction of what they were owed by law and through the agreements they made with him”, she noted. “Adding even further insult, this defendant also allegedly made these employees empty promises of an ownership stake in his business, just to pull the rug out from underneath them – firing them both and stealing their $50,000 supposed investment. We will vigorously prosecute both wage theft cases and work to make these victims whole.”
Unver and Red Lions Food Corp. were arraigned before Judge Michael Alpert on April 8. Unver was charged with scheme to defraud, grand larceny, two counts of failure to pay wages when due under labor law, and willful failure to pay contributions.
He pleaded not guilty and is due back in court on April 27. He faces 5 to 15 years in prison if he is convicted.
Donnelly said Unver and Red Lions Food Corp. allegedly paid an employee $4,200 from May to December 2025, or $150 per week. Unver agreed to pay him $1,500 per week for his seven months of work as a chef, cleaner, and server, underpaying him by about $33,000.
Another employee, who worked as a server and busser from May to October 2025, was paid a total of $913 when the agreed upon wage was allegedly $1,000 per week. This employee worked 11 to 12 hour shifts six days per week. She should have been paid slightly over $25,000 under New York State minimum wage laws.
Unver allegedly underpaid these two employees by a total of about $58,000.
In May 2025, Unver also entered a handwritten agreement with the former chef stating that he would become a 50 percent owner of Red Lions Food Corp for $50,000.
In June of 2025, Unver, the former chef, and former server signed a typed agreement that stated that the employees would each be 25 percent owners, and Unver would be a 50 percent owner. The employees paid Unver a combined $50,000 for their combined 50 percent stake.
Unver fired these two employees in November and December 2025, respectively, for complaining about being underpaid. They were never refunded their $50,000 and Unver never recorded their ownership interests in the company.
Records from the New York State Department of Labor’s Unemployment Insurance Division show that Red Lions Food Corp. allegedly failed to pay its unemployment insurance contributions between December 2024 and December 2025.
The business was notified in November 2025 that it had allegedly underpaid these contributions by about $2,200. This amount has still not been paid.
