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TOPIC: Ex-workers sue CEO of Bill the Butche

apcowboy

Founder of The Meat Cutter's Club

Status: Offline

Posts: 5562

Date: Nov 11, 2014

Ex-workers sue CEO of Bill the Butche	Permalink

November 10, 2014 at 12:18 PM Ex-workers sue CEO of Bill the Butcher Another lawsuit for CEO of meat merchant Bill the Butcher. J’Amy Owens, CEO & co-founder of Bill the Butcher. Bill the Butcher CEO J’Amy Owens has another lawsuit on her hands, this time from 11 ex-employees who say they were owed $42,000 in wages when the company abruptly shut its six high-end meat shops last month. Meanwhile, the chain’s Woodinville shop appears to be reopening under the banner of BB Ranch, a Pike Place Market butcher shop established by William von Schneidau, who co-founded Bill the Butcher but later left the company and sued Owens. A banner for BB Ranch now hangs in the store, and a longtime customer of the shop was told BB Ranch is taking it over. Von Schneidau said he expects to have an announcement soon, but declined immediate comment. The Woodinville store’s landlord, Richard Shawver, would not say what his plans are. The employee lawsuit against Owens comes as shareholders of Bill the Butcher, which was publicly traded despite its minuscule size, are wondering what happened to the 53-year-old retail expert who was its CEO, chief financial officer, and only board member, as well as its controlling shareholder. “The CEO is missing in action, at a public company,” said one shareholder who bought a substantial amount of stock from the company earlier this year. “I’m not holding my breath to see any of my money again.” "The chain lost nearly $3.3 million on sales of $1.3 million for the nine months ended May 31, according to its latest. Shawver, the Woodinville landlord, also said he “never heard a word” in response to eviction notices and warnings the personal property inside the store would be sold. Bill the Butcher, whose shares sold last week for half a cent each, has not updated its website or its Securities and Exchange Commission filings to reflect the store closures. The 11 employees who sued Owens and Bill the Butcher include its former operations manager, purchasing director and head butcher, as well as five meat cutters and three administrative support workers. The lawsuit, filed Oct. 31 in King County Superior Court, claims the operating account at Wells Fargo that was used for company payroll ended September with a balance of just $57.78. But when the company received a $108,596 refund for overpaid state taxes on Oct. 6, Owens instructed her staff not to deposit it into the Wells account, says the suit. Instead Owens had the check put into a “joint BTB/Owen (sic) account” that only she could access, and she rebuffed her staffer’s request for $50,000 to make payroll. A day later, according to the suit, Owens “ceased communications with her operations staff.” Around the same time, signs declaring “closed until further notice” went up at the company’s six stores in and around Seattle. The landlord of the Laurelhurst store recently posted an eviction notice claiming he is owed more than $10,000 for unpaid rent beginning in June. The former workers say they are owed about $36,500 for the final pay period before the stores closed, and several thousand more for uncashed paychecks from earlier periods. Founded in 2009, Bill the Butcher was always strapped for capital and lost nearly $3.3 million on sales of $1.3 million for the nine months ended May 31, according to its latest quarterly filing. But the latest financial issues for Owens were spotlighted in late September when Sunny Kobe Cook, a well-known retail entrepreneur, blogged that Owens owes her about $66,000 from overdue personal loans made “at the start of her many legal battles.” Shortly after the stores closed, The Seattle Times reported that a lawsuit against Owens by the owner of the five-bedroom Queen Anne house she occupied for nearly two years reveals that all payments for the home had been made by Bill the Butcher. Cash-poor Bill the Butcher paid for CEO’s fancy Queen Anne home. The company’s regulatory filings said Owens was leasing a “corporate facility” to the company for $10,000 a month, but did not disclose that those payments were part of a deal to buy the residential property for her. Owens moved out of the house last month. __________________ Leon Wildberger Executive Director

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