JJ Finds new family
Jack Jr. has found a new home with a family that lives three miles from campus.
“He went there on Sunday as an experiment, and it worked so well I decided it was best for him to stay there,” Fr. Chistopher Steck, J.J.’s main caretaker, wrote in an email to the Voice.
The family meets many of Steck’s criteria such as experience for raising bulldogs, living close to campus, a fenced in backyard, multiple adults living at home, stability, and preferably no children.
After the decision was made to move the bulldog to a home setting, Steck had been searching for a new home for almost three weeks, sometimes driving as far as New Jersey to visit families.
The University did not consult Steck, but he said he will be okay as long as J.J. is happy in his new home.
—Isabel Echarte
Epicurean case settled
In a final order issued by Judge Robert L. Wilkins on July 15, the D.C. Court closed the long-running case between Chong Wook Chon and Marvin Hercules. The Epicurean owner settled Hercules’ claims for $11,000 in unpaid overtime wages, while the Court also ordered Chon to pay Hercules’s attorneys $40,000 for the fees he incurred in the litigation.
Hercules started the civil case against Chon’s alleged violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act and DC Minimum Wage Act with a group of over 20 other workers in May 2011. Even though all other workers had received their due money, Hercules’s was interrupted by a criminal case in which Chon pleaded guilty in March.
“This case sends a strong message that employees have a right to be paid for their work—and that employers who use intimidation and coercion to interfere with these rights will be punished. Mr. Chon thought he could silence Mr. Hercules by threatening him. Mr. Chon was wrong, and the lesson will cost him $51,000,” wrote Justin Zelikovitz, Litigation Counsel at the D.C. Employment Justice Center, in an email to the Voice..
Chon could not be immediately reached for comment.
—Lucia He
