EditorTeamster to reality TV star: “We’re gonna bash that pretty face in, you f*cking whore!”
It has taken the U.S. Attorney over a year to bring indictments against five Boston-based Teamsters for threatening the cast and crew of TV reality show ‘Top Chef.’
Nevertheless, according to The Boston Globe, the indcitments have finally come:
Five members of a Teamsters local were indicted Wednesday on federal extortion charges for engaging in what US Attorney Carmen Ortiz called “old school thug tactics’’ that reflected “poorly on our city.”
The members of Teamsters Local 25 were charged with at least one extortion scheme, related to the harassment and intimidation in the spring of 2014 of the “Top Chef” staff — including host Padma Lakshmi — while the popular food show was taping in Boston.
Four of the five were identified by Ortiz’s office as Mark Harrington, 61, of Andover, John Fidler, 51, of Holbrook, Daniel Redmond, 47, of Medford, and Robert Cafarelli, 45, of Middleton.
A fifth man, who was misidentified, will be indicted, according to the Boston Globe.
In 2014, when the Bravo channel went to Boston to tape an episode, Teamster members were allegedly furious that the show was not using union labor.
That is when things got ugly.
[W]hen Bravo’s Top Chef began taping at Boston’s Steel & Rye in June, Teamster members from Local 25 greeted the crew and stars with picket signs, verbal abuse, alleged vandalism and even death threats.
When cookbook author, actress, model and ‘Top Chef‘ host Padma Lakshmi appeared at Boston’s Steak & Rye, according to Deadline.com, Teamster picketers got even uglier by threatening the famous host.
The Teamsters picketers were already mad. By the time Top Chef host Padma Lakshmi’s car pulled up to the Steel & Rye restaurant in the picturesque New England town of Milton just outside Boston, one of them ran up to her car and screamed, “We’re gonna bash that pretty face in, you f*cking whore!”
[More here.]
Although every American is presumed innocent until proven guilty, that it has taken so long for the U.S. Attorney to act makes one wonder why.
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