Police have increased patrols around the Ewing eatery that’s become the target of harassing phone calls and online rage over a social media post about an employee’s possible firing.

The owners of Cafe 72 say they haven’t fired an employee over her desire to attend a friend’s funeral and apologized in a Facebook post for a text message exchange that indicated she had lost her job.

Someone posted screenshots in a Facebook group of the text exchange the worker had with one of the restaurant’s owners, in which the college student tried to arrange for someone to cover her hostess shift so she could attend the funeral for Michael Sot, a 20-year-old student at The College of New Jersey who was killed in a crash Sunday morning with an alleged drunk driver.

During the exchange, “Katie” grows angry with the employee and tells her she will have to “let you go” if she cannot come to work as scheduled.

One of the restaurant’s owners and Katie’s husband, Ben Sanford, posted the message online Thursday apologizing over the matter and saying the worker was not fired. He also announced that the business donated $1,000 to a GoFundMe established for Sot.

In that message, Sanford said the business had received “countless hate emails, bad reviews and threatening phone calls” over the publicity and asked that the harassment stop.

Ewing police confirmed they had received calls from Cafe 72 on Thursday and Friday regarding “anonymous harassing phone calls” to the business.

“As a result, our patrol officers have been periodically checking the business,” Captain David LaBaw said.

Madison Attanasio, who apparently posted the exchange on Facebook but is not the employee in question, posted a second Facebook message thanking everyone for their support of her post, but asked people to stop calling the business.

“…The hate calls to cafe 72 aren’t doing any good but hurting the innocent people who work there,” she wrote. “Please don’t call and harass the employees, but rather avoid the business altogether.”

Screenshot of a follow up post made by a TCNJ student regarding Cafe 72

Attanasio did not respond to several requests for comment.

Cafe 72 was packed with customers on Friday afternoon and staff said the owners had no comment about the controversy, and that they were not in the restaurant that day.

One customer said she usually calls in to have her lunch delivered but wanted to go into the restaurant to tell the staff she supported them.

A former employee of Cafe 72 said she did not interact with upper management that much while she worked there but said that on occasion Katie “would say things that were not the nicest to employees.”

The former employee is also a college student at TCNJ and said she has no plans to return to the restaurant as a customer after the social media incident.

Services for Sot will be held Sunday. He was acting as the designated driver for fellow students early Sunday morning when a car driven by David Lamar V, 22, of West Windsor crossed the centerline and collided head-on with Sot’s Dodge Charger.

Lamar is charged with vehicular manslaughter, assault by auto and driving under the influence.

Matt Gray may be reached at mgray@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MattGraySJT.

Olivia Rizzo may be reached at orizzo@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @LivRizz. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

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