Five young black men who posted a video of a manager at a Chipotle on Grand Avenue last year that they claimed showed her discriminating against them are now suing the national restaurant chain.

In addition to discrimination, the federal lawsuit claims Chipotle engaged in a “smear campaign” against the young men after they posted their video to Twitter.

One of the men received an onslaught of death threats and tweets containing racial epithets, the suit says.

The group is seeking financial damages from the company to compensate for the “deep humiliation, embarrassment and emotional distress,” they’ve endured because of its conduct, according to their lawsuit.

Their lawsuit leans on a finding by the city of St. Paul’s Department of Human Rights, which conducted an investigation into the incident and determined in July that “based on the preponderance of evidence” there was probable cause to suggest that the casual fast-food chain discriminated against the young men, according to the lawsuit.

In its answer filed Friday, Chipotle disputed much of the plaintiffs’ claims, calling one of them, “patently ridiculous.” It also took aim at the Department of Human Rights’ investigation, characterizing it as “inadequate and incomplete.”

The case stems from an incident that took place at the St. Paul Chipotle location last November, when a store manager refused to serve the five young men unless they pre-paid for their meals because she and at least one other employee believed they were part of a group of repeat dine-and-dash offenders.

One of the young men — Masud Ali — took a video of their interaction and posted it to Twitter. The video quickly went viral.

The footage begins with the employee telling the men, “You gotta pay, because you’ve never had money when you come in here.”

“Ya’ll are basically stereotyping us,” one of them replies.

Chipotle wound up firing the manager shortly after the incident, but then offered to rehire her days later, explaining in a statement that it received “additional information” that changed their understanding of what happened.

Their reversal came a day after media outlets published images of several older posts on Twitter from one of the young men’s accounts that appeared to discuss dining and dashing in the past.

In one from July 2015, Ali allegedly tweeted: “Dine and dash is forever interesting.”

In another: “Guys we’re borrowing food … that’s it and if the lady tires (sic) to stop you at the door don’t hesitate to truck the s— out of that b—-.”

Another read: “aye man I think Chipotle catching up to us fam … should we change locations…”

After the Tweets hit the media, Ali faced an onslaught of messages from the public attacking him for reportedly throwing up racial discrimination as a defense to get him out of trouble, according to the lawsuit.

Some people reportedly threatened to harm or kill him. One person referred to he and his friends as “true failed abortions,” the lawsuit said.

It’s not clear who first posted the alleged “retweets” but Ali never wrote them, according to Chris Penwell, an attorney representing the men. The suit says none of the other plaintiffs wrote them either.

Penwell went on to say that Chipotle had a duty to vet the origins of those Tweets, but it didn’t, instead allowing them to feed into a false narrative he says developed about his clients.

“They just let them hang out there,” Penwell said.

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Roseville schools employee, 20, charged with criminal sexual conduct involving student, 15 He added that Chipotle relied on the tweets to defend its employees’ behavior in its response to the St. Paul human rights investigation, Penwell continued.

A spokesperson for the company had said shortly after announcing its decision to rehire the woman that its shift was not based on the tweets, but did no elaborate at the time what did.

Penwell also said that any assertion by Chipotle that his clients had dined and dashed at the chain previously was false.

He added that one of the young men had been in the restaurant on the same evening that another group’s credit card was declined, resulting in comped meals for them by the manager at the time, but said he was not a part of that group.

Chipotle has suggested that the failed credit card was a ruse to avoid payment. It also asserted that its employee believed that “some number of the plaintiffs group” had engaged in what it referred to as the “dine and dash scam” during a previous evening.

The company added in its answer that the plaintiffs were essentially accusing it of “hacking” into Ali’s account, calling the suggestion “patently ridiculous.”

While largely declining to comment on the lawsuit due to “pending litigation,” Chipotle’s chief corporation reputation officer, Laurie Schalow, repeated that assertion Monday, saying the company “has never hacked into anyone’s Twitter account,” adding: “The suggestion that we have done so is outrageous and absurd.”

Penwell said his lawsuit never asserts that the company hacked anyone. He added that he and his clients had hoped to reach a settlement with the company outside of court.

According to legal documents he previously told Chipotle’s legal counsel that his clients would agree to settle for $6 million.

Instead, the company filed an answer to the suit and had it moved to federal court. It had previously been filed in Ramsey County District Court.

Penwell said the city’s Human Rights department findings should help his clients case.

“The city of St. Paul concluded that there had been discrimination… Given the city did a thorough investigation, we are going to stand behind what they concluded,” he said.

The city’s investigation found that there was no evidence to suggest that any of the young men who were told to pre-pay for their food Nov. 15 were among the group who could not pay for it in the previous incident, according to the department’s findings in the case issued this past July 24, which the plaintiffs’ filed with their lawsuit.

Further, the city said security footage taken of the incident showed a white woman approach the counter to order food while the men were still there. She was allowed to order food without being told to pre-pay for it, and then, when she got to the register to hand over her money, was told she didn’t need to pay at all, according to the legal document.

The encounter underscored the problem with Chipotle’s argument, the city’s report found, because it shows an employee waiving payment for a white woman, while telling the group of young black men that they couldn’t order food without proving they could pay for it, the findings say.

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Roseville: Man arrested after ex-wife suffers potential exposure to toxic chemical In its answer, Chipotle said the employee opted to waive the woman’s payment because “it was close to closing time and she was concerned that this customer was experiencing a poor visit due to certain of Plaintiffs’ conduct,” the legal document says.

The Human Rights department’s findings do not make any mention of defamation.

Penwell said the case will next move into the discovery phase.