Real Housewives of New York star John Mahdessian has hit back furiously at legal claims that he stole wages from employees at his dry-cleaning firm.
Instead, Dorinda Medley’s long-term boyfriend — who insists he’s an ‘exemplary employer’ — blames lawyers for promising a fortune to a worker who is now suing him over alleged lost pay.
Mahdessian, 52, runs the high-end Manhattan company Madame Paulette — and calls himself the ‘Dry Cleaner to the Stars’.
And the businessman told DailyMail.com in an exclusive interview that the suit, filed in Manhattan last summer, is all over a couple of parking tickets worth less than $200.
‘It’s a totally bogus claim,’ said Mahdessian, who made a name for himself with his frequent battles with Bethenny Frankel on The Real Housewives of New York City.
John Mahdessian, boyfriend of Real Housewives of New York star Dorinda Medley (pictured), is facing a class action lawsuit that was filed last summer. But he says the claim is ‘totally bogus’
A delivery driver for Mahdessian’s high-end dry cleaning business Madame Paulette (pictured), claims his boss stole wages from employees. He alleges unlawful deductions from his pay packet and claims the reality star failed to pay minimum wage rates
He was brought in to restore Princess Diana’s gowns for display and his work on Joe DiMaggio’s mildew-stained original jersey was so good that its value went from near worthless to more than $300,000, according to The Huffington Post.
His A-list client list over the years has included stars like Sting, Naomi Campbell and Liza Minelli, blue-blood families including the Kennedys and Rockefellers, designers such as Vera Wang and Hermes and elite Manhattan stores Saks Fifth Avenue, Henri Bendel and Bloomingdale’s.
But he was rocked when delivery driver Benjamin Brown launched a class action lawsuit against him alleging unlawful deductions from his pay packet and claims he failed to pay minimum wage rates.
A second employee, Manny Perez, originally joined the lawsuit but later dropped his claim.
‘When it first happened, I said to him “Manny, what do I owe you?” He said “Nothing really, but the law firm said I could get a lot of money.”‘
Mahdessian, the third generation of his family to run the 58-year-old company, said the whole dispute arose over parking tickets incurred by drivers. He said the company used to pay them all but changed its policy so it would only pay those that it could dispute such as double parking on Manhattan’s crowded streets.
‘It’s a totally bogus claim,’ said Mahdessian, who made a name for himself with his frequent battles with Bethenny Frankel on The Real Housewives of New York City. Pictured: Mahdessian (center), Medley (right) and Luann de Lesseps (left)
‘But if you park in front of a fire hydrant or at a bus stop, we can’t fight those, so we told people they would have to pay them.
‘In Ben’s case, it’s just a couple of parking tickets worth something like $150 or $200. And even then I told him we would work something out with him.
‘But somehow it blew up into a class action lawsuit because the lawyers told him he could potentially get thousands of dollars from me. But, of course, the lawyers will get more.’
Brown’s attorneys, Alanna Sakovits from the Manhattan employment law company Virginia and Ambinder did not return calls asking for comment.
‘I asked him about it, he said the lawyers said he couldn’t drop out. I told him he’s a grown man he should make his own mind up.’
Brown and Perez filed the lawsuit last summer, claiming to be acting on behalf of dozens of ‘current or former employees’ at Madame Paulette. ‘The putative class is so numerous that joinder of all members is impractical,’ Sakovits and her fellow attorney Jack Newhouse wrote.
The businessman was brought in to restore Princess Diana’s gowns for display (pictured)
‘The size of the putative class is believed to be in excess of 40 individuals. In addition, the names of all potential members of the putative class are not known.’
But no other employees signed on and Perez dropped out within weeks, leaving Brown to fight the case on his own.
Brown, who has worked for the company for seven years, said in the suit that his wage of $15.50 an hour was cut to $11 with bonuses if he avoided parking tickets, a policy he called ‘unlawful.’ He also said Madame Paulette deducted pay for lunch breaks, whether they were taken or not and did not pay overtime.
Mahdessian denied those charges.
The law firm Virginia and Ambinder were in the news when intern Mallory Musallam accused them of pressuring her to sue David Letterman in 2014. At the time the company insisted it had never coerced anyone into filing a lawsuit. Musallam later wrote to Letterman apologizing for filing suit, claiming she had been ‘approached by a beguiling legion of lawsuit-hungry attorneys.’
‘I was by no means looking for a trap door out by exploiting your established organization and I cannot apologize enough for this debacle. I do not believe in getting something for nothing — that’s not how I was raised,’ she wrote, according to the New York Daily News.
According to Madame Paulette’s Facebook page, Mahdessian was behind the scenes of Melania and Donald Trump’s wedding in 2005 and helped Melania get dressed
Melania and Donald Trump married at the Episcopal Church of Bethesda by-the-Sea in Palm Beach, Florida back in 2005
The company also represented interns who sued for wages from Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen and the Wendy Williams Show, as well as a slew of fashion companies including Oscar de la Renta, Coach and Marc Jacobs.
Mahdessian is also no stranger to lawsuits. In 1997, it was he who was asking for money when he sued a Vermont ski resort, claiming it was responsible for multiple injuries he suffered on the slopes.
He sued the Stratton Mountain resort for $75,000, saying he ‘suddenly and without warning encountered an unmarked, man-made, hazard.’ He claimed he broke his back in the accident and sustained massive and permanent physical and emotional injuries,’ RadarOnline reported.
But a jury ruled against him and he ended up out of pocket, having to pay $2,708.11 for trial costs.