Witness at ‘Top Chef’ extortion trial testifies about shouted slurs
The Teamsters who allegedly tried to extort the crew of the hit show “Top Chef’’ in June 2014 shouted a sexually vulgar term at women working on the program and also lobbed homophobic slurs at men, a witness said Tuesday in federal court in Boston.
“If you were a woman, they called you a [expletive deleted],’’ Erica Ross, a co-executive producer of the show, testified Tuesday about a contentious shoot for the show in Milton.
“If you were a man, they called you a pickle,’’ a derogatory term for gays, she said.
Ross was the first witness in the highly anticipated trial of John Fidler, Daniel Redmond, Robert Cafarelli, and Michael Ross, members of Charlestown-based Local 25, who are charged with conspiracy to extort and aiding and abetting.
Prosecutors say the men used strongarm tactics in an effort to intimidate the production crew into hiring union members for jobs that had already been filled. Defense lawyers maintain their clients were merely exercising their right to picket.
The case has conjured images of union bullying and Boston’s hardscrabble past and has also loomed as a potentially thorny issue for Mayor Martin J. Walsh, a former labor leader up for re-election.
Ross testified Tuesday that “Top Chef’’ producers initially chose Boston to film its 12th season because of the city’s rich history and strong culinary reputation. But restaurants in Boston canceled agreements to host the show after encountering trouble from the union, prosecutors say, forcing the crew to relocate to the Steele & Rye restaurant in Milton.
The Teamsters blocked the entrance to the restaurant, Ross testified, and began screaming insults at the show’s crew.
Earlier Tuesday, jurors heard opening statements, and prosecutor Laura Kaplan laid out the government’s case in stark terms.
“Fear, generated by these defendants, that if ‘Top Chef’ did not comply with their demands of money or wages, production would be shut down,’’ Kaplan said. “That is the crime of extortion.’’
Defense lawyers countered that while the union picketers may have used distasteful language, they never physically threatened the crew and were advocating for legitimate work for their members.
The Teamsters were also horrified that production assistants in their late teens and early 20s had been hired to drive large commercial vehicles, which requires training and experience, defense attorneys said.
“The narrative of the chest-bumping and aggressive behavior is noise,’’ said W. Jamiel Allen , a lawyer for Redmond, during his opening remarks. “It was static, built on a house of cards as real as a reality TV show itself.’’
Prosecutors have portrayed the men in court papers as intimidating toughs who, furious the show was using nonunion drivers, “chest-bumped’’ the “Top Chef’’ staff in June 2014 during a taping of an episode at Steel & Rye.
Additional witnesses expected to testify for prosecutors include Gail Simmons and Padma Lakshmi, the show’s popular hosts.
In one particularly ugly incident detailed in court papers, Fidler allegedly menaced Lakshmi, when her van tried to pull into the driveway of Steel & Rye, reaching into the minivan and saying “Lookie what what we have here’’ before insulting the driver and telling Lakshmi, “I’ll smash your pretty little face.’’
If convicted, Fidler, 53; Redmond, 49; Cafarelli, 47; and Ross, 63, could be sentenced to as long as 20 years in prison.
A fifth Teamster charged in the case reached a plea agreement with prosecutors last year. Mark Harrington, former secretary-treasurer of Local 25, pleaded guilty to a charge of attempted extortion and was sentenced to two years of probation with six months of home confinement and ordered to pay a $10,000 fine and restitution of $24,023.
The trial comes at an uncomfortable time for Walsh, who has seen two of his top administrators indicted for attempting to withhold permits for another event unless organizers hired union workers.
Walsh has adamantly denied wrongdoing and guaranteed that he will not be indicted.
