Monday, November 3, 2008

Dan Kaufman Pleads Guilty -- But Not Brooklyn's Ex-Busy Chef

UPDATE: We were all excited for a while to hear that Dan Kaufman -- the notorious restaurant manager who passed himself off as an owner of The Busy Chef eatery on Henry Street in Brooklyn Heights -- pled guilty to some of the charges leveled against him.

But now it's time to eat crow -- a commenter pointed out that there might be two Dan Kaufmans -- and indeed that is the case! Dan Kaufman number 2 pled guilty to similar charges -- but on Staten Island, not Brooklyn.

Brooklyn's Kaufman, charged with identity theft, falsifying business records, grand larceny and attempted identity theft, will be seeing the judge on December 26.

Thanks commenter number 2, for setting the record straight.

And now it comes to our attention that there is still another Dan Kaufman, scheduled to come before a judge in Manhattan in April!

Background: Kaufman was arrested in July. His activities are credited with driving the Busy Chef -- along with its sister stores, Blue Pig ice cream shop, Wine Bar, Oven restaurant and Busy Chef Court Street -- out of business.

In addition to the $25,000 that Kaufman allegedly stole from customers, he also allegedly took much more from the business itself, falsifying the books to cover up the losses.

Previous posts on this topic here:
- Brooklyn Heights: Busy Chef Cover Up -- Stop Work Order
- 50 Ex- Busy Chef Restaurant Employees in Brooklyn, Ready to Work
- And Then There Were None: The Wine Bar, Last in Brooklyn's Busy Chef Empire, Closes
- 'Mired in Scandal,' It's All Over for Brooklyn's Busy Chef
- Why the Brooklyn Paper Didn't Write About the Crook at the Busy Chef and What This Means For America
- Arrested Busy Chef Partner Has a History in Boston
- A Busy Brooklyn Chef Now Under Arrest
- Downtown Brooklyn Busy Chef Pretty Busy
- Busy Chef Empire: Frozen Dinners or Homemade Cuisine?
- Busy Chef coming to Court Street

Photo by MK Metz

Go to McBrooklyn's HOME PAGE.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why was his case in Staten Island?

Anonymous said...

wrong kaufman, the dan kaufman you are talking about goes to court on december 26th... nice job!

mcbrooklyn said...

Right you are 12:10 -- we've updated the post and still trying to get the crow feathers out of our mouths.

Miriam said...

I found a dime. Oh well. Lot to learn in them deffffffts o' hell.

Miriam said...

Hey Dan, HOW DO YOU EXIST???? love it. Love IT!!!!!

Miriam said...

stop lying.

p.mac said...

Proud to say that I had a big hand in Getting Dan fired from management in a top Boston Steak House. Dan would pick up cash checks in folders from tables(not his job) and claim them as walk-outs, pocketing the cash and writing up the staff member for not being on the job. I went to the owner, myself, a long term waiter at the place. We put on our tiny "sting" on a busy patio night. I used my own cash for bait, marked with a red sharpie pen on the big bills, handy for shake down time. He was fired, but became an "owner" of a restaurant named "Inc", on Newbury Street and began flashing around big bucks within a few weeks, seated at the bar of the restaurant that he'd been fired from weeks before. Long story short,"Inc." folded within a year, although it had been a popular spot. The word in the area was that it was Dan's fault, and that the owners were going after him with a few smart lawyers. There is NO good in this man. He has no soul. Unfortunately, souless people don't come with stickers on their foreheads, and can fool even the best of us while feeding on our trust. Some people are lower than slime and we all know it. Dan Kaufman deserves as much time behind bars as the law will allow, but I assure you that he'll be running the jail house in no time at all. All of you who know Dan, know exactly what I am speaking of. We know!

Anonymous said...

i think hes the biggest con artist that walked the face of the earth. how do his girfriends stand him. we all know he had many. poor rachel knew nothing. what a joke.he does deserve what ever the law allows him behind bars he hurt a lot of innocent people. i hope he fries.