“A&R and Wiseguys has absolutely nothing to do with it,” Allen said Tuesday. “When I received the information from the court, not one of those employees listed worked for A&R. Not one day.”
The Ohio Department of Commerce began investigating after receiving a complaint from an employee at the end of January.
Assistant Attorney General Aaron Johnston said last week that Allen owned the business at the time of the investigation, which concerns payments to the workers from April to June 2013. Allen denied that and said he had parted company with the business at the beginning of the year.
Johnston said state officials have made multiple attempts to contact the owners of the business but have received limited response and had yet to receive a response to the complaint filed in December.
The state notified WiseGuys Pizza and A&R Pizzeria LLC of its findings in a letter dated Sept. 19 and ordered the owner of the business to forward checks for each of the employees or former employees to the Department of Commerce, according to court documents obtained by the Springfield News-Sun.
The letter states that 30 days after the date of the letter any unpaid wages would be forwarded to the Ohio Attorney General’s Office for collection, according to court documents.
WiseGuys Pizza, formerly of 3451 E. National Road, was owned by Allen.
Allen took over a Cousin Vinny’s Pizza at that location in September 2012. But after a “partner dispute,” Cousin Vinny’s owner Eugene Kettering said he reclaimed the business a few months later.
Kettering told the Springfield News-Sun in December 2012 that customer dissatisfaction and confusion caused Cousin Vinny’s to reclaim both the Springfield and Fairborn locations.
Allen told the News-Sun on Tuesday that WiseGuys closed in Springfield as of Feb. 1 and should not be named in the lawsuit.
“All this will be brought out when this suit is dismissed … It was just served on Dec. 19,” Allen said.
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