For eleven months the U.S. Department of Labor has relentlessly tried to get an elderly Pound Ridge couple to discuss their hired help, and for eleven months the couple has steadfastly ignored the agency’s demands.
Several subpoenas have been issued directing the couple to turn over payroll records and schedule testimony. Investigators have placed numerous phone calls and sent numerous emails and in one instance knocked on the couple’s door. Letters were sent, a process server was hired, United Parcel Service overnight delivery was used. To no avail.
A law firm acknowledged that the man of the house did receive a subpoena but the man wanted to know why the agency was bothering them.
Now the agency is asking a judge to order the couple to “cease their disobedience and resistance to these lawfully issued subpoenas,” according to a petition filed Aug. 31 in U.S. District Court, White Plains, “or suffer contempt.”
The Westchester County Business Journal is not identifying the couple because of an indication that the man suffers from dementia and concern that other personal information might account for their behavior.
Vanessa Phillips, an investigator for the agency’s Wage and Hour Division in Rochester, was assigned the case on Nov. 1. Her job was to determine whether the couple kept accurate records and paid domestic service employees in accordance with the federal Fair Labor Standards Act.
She sent them a request for documents by UPS overnight delivery, called their home phone and individual cell phones, and left a voicemail message on the woman’s cell phone. No one responded.
Denise Fernandez, an assistant director in the White Plains office, tried to hand-deliver a letter on March 2.
“When I knocked on the door I heard individuals moving around inside the home,” she states in an affidavit, “but nobody answered the door.”
She left the letter in the mailbox.
On June 23, administrative subpoenas were issued for documents and testimony. A process server made several unsuccessful attempts to serve the papers, and the subpoenas were sent via UPS and delivered on July 7.
Dan Harris, executive director of the Brian McCaffrey law firm in Jamaica, Queens, responded by email on July 11. The firm had represented the man in a 2018 bankruptcy. Harris said the man could not appear for testimony on July 13, the day designated in a subpoena.
He also said that the man “appears to be suffering symptoms of early Alzheimer’s / dementia and is unable to accurately provide details to us about what led up to this.”
Wilmsen called Harris and offered to extend the deadlines for documents and testimony. When she called back on July 21, Harris said he had discussed the subpoenas with the couple, according to her affidavit, but he would not be representing them after all.
Given that no lawsuit had been filed, Harris purportedly said, the couple had asked why the Department of Labor was bothering them. He told them he did not know.
Wilmsen kept calling and on Aug. 23 she spoke with the woman who confirmed that she had received the subpoenas and had discussed them with Harris. Wilmsen said they needed to comply by Aug. 30.
The woman asked Wilmsen to call the next day to schedule testimony. When Wilmsen called back, according to her affidavit, no one answered. She left a voicemail message and has yet to hear back from anyone.
The couple’s failures to produce records or testify, according to the petition, impair the agency’s ability to investigate compliance with the Fair Labor Standards Act and to prosecute any violations.
Attempts to contact the couple for their side of the story failed. Edmund Fitzgerald, regional public affairs director for the Department of Labor, said the agency “does not comment on the specifics of open investigations, including what may have prompted the investigation.”
