A court has ordered the owner of 4 Leo's Coney Island spots to pay $500K+ across 143 workers. Here's why.

A federal court has ordered the owner of four Leo's Coney Island restaurants in Southeast Michigan to pay more than $500,000 in owed overtime wages and damages among 143 employees, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

Prosecutors with the federal agency said Leo's Coney Island spots in Clarkston, Dearborn, Livonia and Sterling Heights and Kiriakos Vlahadamis, the owner of the locations, paid workers regular rates for all hours worked, including all hours worked over 40 in a workweek, according to a complaint filed in 2024. 

The complaint said Vlahadamis and others at the four locations signed a court document in 2018 agreeing to comply with the Fair Labor Standards Act, which requires businesses to pay employees time-and-one-half their regular rate for all hours worked over 40 in a workweek. Prosecutors said they "repeatedly and willfully violated" the law between 2018 and 2024.

Investigators, according to the complaint, said Vlahadamis and others at the restaurants also maintained two sets of timecards to separate employees' regular and overtime hours. The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan in June approved a consent judgment that orders them to pay the 143 employees $515,857 in overtime wages and damages.

The consent judgment also requires Vlahadamis and the sites to pay $73,784 in civil penalties and $10,000 in attorney fees.