Former Chicago restaurant employee says he was fired for revealing unsanitary kitchen conditions

A former employee of a Chicago restaurant is alleging he was wrongfully terminated after recording videos of what he describes as unsanitary conditions in the kitchen.

According to a former server at Hugo's Frog Bar & Fish House on Rush Street, he and other employees raised health concerns last month after a drain backup during business hours caused sewage to enter the kitchen.

Matthew Cabrales said he filmed several cellphone videos on June 4 exposing the alleged unsafe conditions in the restaurant. He said that after reporting sanitation concerns over the water backup in the kitchen, restaurant staff were instructed to continue serving customers.

Cabrales said he was told the following day not to return to work for his shift. He claimed days after his firing that he lost his job for using his cellphone during his shift to record the videos.

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The former server has since hired attorney David Fish of Fish Potter Bolaños, P.C. They filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board on Monday alleging Cabrales was wrongfully terminated, with Cabrales seeking lost wages.

"It smelled like sewage as soon as you hit the back of the house, as soon as you opened that little slide door, it smelled like sewage, and when you went to the back dish pit where the sewage was coming up, it smelled like feces directly," Cabrales told Fox 32. "We have a lot of elderly people and children, it's a family restaurant, people of all ages, and we're wading through water that has sewage in it and tracking that into the dining room."

But Gibson’s Restaurant Group, which owns the restaurant, said the issue was quickly resolved and that employees and customers were not exposed to any unsafe conditions.

"Hugo's Frog Bar on Rush Street had a drain back up in its dishwashing area one evening last month which caused some puddling under the kitchen floor mats in the back-of-house," a spokeswoman said in a statement to Fox 32. "We are proud of the team who immediately sprang to action to find the cause, call in support, and clean and sanitize the area. Dishes to be cleaned were moved to an alternate dishwashing station until the situation was resolved." 

"At no time was the health or safety of our customers or employees in danger – if there had been any risk, we wouldn't hesitate to shut down, just like we voluntarily closed our patio to protect our employees and customers when the air quality in Chicago was hazardous," she continued. "Hugo's has always provided a safe working environment for its employees."

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The spokeswoman said drainage incidents like this "happen in the restaurant business" and that workers "regularly rod and jet our drains." 

"In fact, our sanitary procedures go above and beyond what is required by the City, including a voluntary quarterly third-party inspection to assure we are operating at the highest standards of hygiene, cleanliness and sanitation," she said. "A big shout out to the members of our team who rose to the occasion."

Trump wants trial after 2024 election, GOP source on Biden gets indicted

Donald Trump is attempting to delay his classified documents trial until after the election.

Of course he is.

Trump has used delaying tactics since he was a New York real estate developer tangling with local authorities.

His lawyers said in a court filing Monday night that Trump’s presidential candidacy "will create extraordinary challenges in the jury selection process" and limit their client’s ability "to secure a fair and impartial adjudication."

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It’s not an off-the-wall argument – Trump would be getting hammered in the campaign by his rivals – but still falls flat. A delay of nearly a year and half, when special counsel Jack Smith wants to start in December? 

And there could be more indictments, one from the Georgia prosecutor investigating pressure to overturn the election and another from Smith, if he chooses to bring charges related to Jan. 6.

The former president is in my view concerned not so much about jury selection as an election-year conviction that could send him to prison. Yes, he could still run from prison, but that might be the final straw for wavering Republicans, not to mention general-election voters.

If Trump wins the election, he can simply hire a new attorney general who will call the classified documents indictment an abomination and drop the case.

If another Republican wins the election, he or she could pardon Trump.

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The date-setting decision will be made by Aileen Cannon, a Florida judge appointed by Trump, who drew fierce criticism for her favorable rulings in an earlier case that were overturned by an appeals court.

Trump’s calendar is getting, well, rather crowded. He faces a civil fraud trial in October as New York Attorney General Letitia James tries to slap major restrictions on his businesses. And there is a criminal trial, set for March of next year, in the Stormy Daniels case involving hush money payments to the porn star.

Meanwhile, there is another investigation, aimed at the Biden family, that just took an embarrassing turn for the GOP.

The whistleblower that Republican lawmakers have been touting as possessing evidence of Biden corruption was just indicted.

Gal Luft, co-director of the Maryland think tank Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, has been charged with serious criminal offenses, including lying to investigators. Jim Comer, the congressman leading the Biden probe, said in May that the source had gone "missing."

Maybe that’s because Luft was initially arrested in Cyprus back in February, skipped out on his bail and has been a fugitive from justice.

"Remember," Comer said, "these informants are kind of in the spy business, so they don’t make a habit of being seen a lot or being high profile or anything like that." 

Luft, a dual Israeli-American citizen, has argued that the Bidens got money from a Chinese energy giant with ties to the Beijing government. Hunter Biden may well have received such payments for his international buckraking trading on his last name, yet no evidence has surfaced that Joe Biden, then a former vice president, received a dime.

Here’s the overarching irony. The indictment, brought by the Manhattan U.S. attorney, says Luft broke foreign registration laws by secretly trying to promote Chinese policies, acting through an unnamed former top American official. Luft is also accused of violating the U.S. embargo against Iran by brokering deals for Iranian oil.

According to the indictment, a former top Hong Kong official offered Luft’s firm $350,000 a year to arrange international conferences. By 2016, Luft told the ex-Hong Kong official by email that his contact, the former U.S. official, was advising candidate Donald Trump. "We nailed it!" he wrote.

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Emails show that Luft was secretly writing pieces for worldwide publications advocating a "grand bargain" between the U.S. and China, but these appeared under the byline of the former American official, as if he were an independent expert.

The Republican lawmakers relying on Luft presumably had no knowledge of this. But this underscores the danger of going on TV and making corruption claims against the president without having solid evidence in hand – and relying on a source who went "missing." 

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As for the information that Luft claims he gave to the FBI about the Bidens, let’s just say the man has some obvious credibility problems. 

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