A Philly restaurant owner agreed to pay $1 million to settle a federal wage theft case. Four years later, where’s the money?

In February 2019, the owner of two Philly-area sushi restaurants agreed to pay $1 million to settle a U.S. Department of Labor lawsuit that claimed he’d stolen wages from his workers.

Kwang Bum Kim, who owned Osaka Japan in Chestnut Hill and Lansdale, was supposed to pay $935,000 in back wages and damages to 201 workers — servers, bussers, hibachi chefs, dishwashers — as well as a $65,000 civil penalty to the government. Kim had shorted his workers on their tips, the Department of Labor said, and failed to pay them overtime.

Some workers were owed more than $30,000, as part of the settlement.

But more than four years later, Kim’s former employees haven’t gotten anything. Nor has the federal government, according to the Labor Department.

When a worker is the victim of wage theft — getting tips skimmed, not making minimum wage, or simply not getting paid at all — winning a favorable result in a government investigation or court case is only half the battle. Whether it’s in Philadelphia with its Department of Labor or in a state like California, collecting on wage theft judgments is notoriously difficult, and even the federal government struggles with it.

Leanne Feilmeier, who spent her 20s working as a hostess and bartender at the Chestnut Hill location, was due $14,435 — money that would’ve helped her pay off the loans she took out to attend Temple University.

Now a teacher, Feilmeier, 33, said she’s given up hope on ever getting her share of the settlement. “I don’t how to go about demanding it,” she said.

» READ MORE: For the first time, Philly enforces its wage theft law by suing an employer who stiffed workers

Kim, who is 77, according to public records, did not respond to requests for comment sent through his lawyers, voice mails, and registered mail addressed to his home.

Labor Department spokesperson Lenore Uddyback-Fortson said in a statement that her office “has made significant efforts to collect this judgment,” including filing writs of garnishment and liens on property owned by Kim.

In February 2020, the federal government filed a $1 million lien against Kim’s properties. He and his wife own Osaka’s former Chestnut Hill location on Germantown Avenue and a home in Blue Bell. The lien could result in money for the workers if the Kims want to sell or refinance.

The government cannot seize the properties because Kim owns them with his wife. Under Pennsylvania law, if a judgment is placed against someone, properties owned with a spouse cannot be taken to pay a debt.

» READ MORE: After they won their wage theft cases, they waited years to get paid. Some still wait.

One way to make employers pay up is to ask the court to hold them in contempt. The Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division did this successfully last year in Boston. The process, which took three years, involved investigating the business owners’ assets and selling properties they owned. In September 2022, the two construction companies paid the rest of what they owed — $1.8 million — to their former workers.

This strategy worked because the DOL found evidence the employers had the ability to pay the judgment but were refusing to do so.

The Labor Department referred the Osaka case to the U.S. Treasury Department for collection, Uddyback-Fortson said. The Treasury Department did not respond to requests for comment. The Labor Department declined to answer further questions about its collections efforts.

Kim has other debts. He and his business Osaka Japanese Restaurant Inc. owe Philadelphia $344,450 in unpaid business taxes, according to court filings. JHSK Inc., the corporate name of his former Lansdale location, owes the Pennsylvania Department of Revenue $73,930.

The city shut Osaka down in September 2019 for not paying taxes. Since then, the Chestnut Hill property has housed at least two different sushi restaurants, including the one there currently: Sakura Ramen and Sushi Bar.

Gabriel Stoler, who worked at Osaka in Chestnut Hill and Lansdale, is owed more than $34,000 from the settlement. When he found out in 2019, he was excited — he, too, thought about paying off his college loans.

But since then, he’s moved on. He has a wife and a kid; he now works at a financial technology company. He hasn’t been able to get any answers from the Labor Department about the settlement.

“I feel like Mr. Kim is gonna get away with it,” he said.

Staff writer Mike Klein contributed to this article.