Huffington Post

November 6, 2013

Delivery man Adam Wiercinski was allegedly subjected to horribly anti-Semitic harassment for years by his supervisors at Midtown restaurant Mangia 57, in New York City. However, he’s had his day in court, and Mangia 57 will have to pay the price for the shocking behavior of its employees to the tune of $900K, after a jury took just four hours to reach a verdict on Thursday in Wiercinski’s favor.

However, Mangia has vehemently denied Wiercinski’s allegations on Abbe Diaz’s blog, and will likely be appealing the verdict. She is the wife of Mangia owner Sasha Muniak. Additional information has come to light about a previous suit against Mangia by Wiercinski in 2009, which was withdrawn.

His lawyer, Matthew Blit, elaborated on the abuse allegedly suffered by Wiercinski, telling The NY Post, “They would call him a ‘dirty Jew,’ and when he would say, ‘But I took a bath,’ they would laugh and say, ‘No, you still smell like Jew.'”

He claimed that for his ex-supervisors, no topic was off limits, as night-shift manager Artur Zbozien would often pass gas in front of Wiercinski and say it was Zyklon B, the poisonous cyanide used in Nazi gas chambers during the Holocaust to kill hundreds of thousands of Jews. Wiercinski told The Post, “How can I explain to you — he passed wind, loudly. Everybody laughed, and then he said, ‘See, this is your Zyklon B, you stupid Jew.’”

The jury went silent as Blit explained the significance of Zyklon B, as most were too young to be familiar with its use. Blit knew all too much about it, however, as only two of his father’s six siblings survived in what is now Ukraine.

Wiercinski worked at Mangia 57 from 1992 until 2008, trapped by his fear of becoming jobless if he sought out a different position. His lawyer explained, “He said, ‘Who else is going to hire a 50-year-old deliveryman.’ He was afraid.”

Other supervisors would throw pennies at him, call him a “Jewish pederast,” and dock his tips, reports The Post.

Only three days of testimony were needed to decide the case last week, which included supporting accounts from three of Wiercinski’s furious co-workers. Mangia presented five witnesses on its behalf to testify that Wiercinski’s allegations were untrue, to no avail.

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