If your car is stolen in Rhode Island the suspect will face felony charges, but if your boss steals your hard-earned pay it's considered a misdemeanor.
“It comes up a lot at the end of jobs,” Attorney General Peter Neronha said. “It’s your last paycheck, well I’m just going to close the job down and I’m not going to pay you.”
In 2019, the Department of Labor cited about 8,500 employers for stealing $287 million from workers.
Several Rhode Islanders have fallen victim over the past year.
The owner of a Portsmouth construction company is now serving probation after he allegedly failed to pay two of his workers over $1,500.
A Providence woman was in court last month accused of withholding over $22,000 from her employee. She’s facing three counts of issuing a fraudulent check over $1,500 and one count of wage theft.
Neither suspect is facing felony charges because state law doesn't allow it, something Neronha is now working to change.
“If on the other hand I’m stealing your appliance or frankly even your pet and it’s worth more than $1,500 it’s a felony and that’s just not justice,” he said.
In an effort to crack down on criminal companies, Neronha is calling on the state legislature to pass a bill that would stiffen penalties for wage theft and the misclassification of employees as independent contractors.
The crimes don’t just hurt the victims who didn’t get paid, they also rip off taxpayers.
“By classifying these workers as independent contractors when they are not, they...
A nursing home run by the family of Kim Keon-hee lost the first trial in a lawsuit seeking to cancel the National Health Insurance Service's disposition to claw back about 1.4 billion won in long-...