Wage fight leds to bat and machete

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - The server who recently went public about how his boss was stiffing employees on the recent minimum wage increase says the boss's son showed up at his house with a bat and a machete.

About an hour after that whistleblower went to the media about his boss' decision to not pay the new minimum wage; he says the boss' son showed up at his door, ready to take batting practice.

“I said Andrew what are you doing here, he said I came to talk to you,” Kevin O’Leary recounted at his home Thursday.

O’Leary says he was surprised when Andrew Szeman showed up at his home near Rio Grande and I-40 on Sunday afternoon.

“He said why are you trying to destroy my family, why are you trying to destroy the malt shop?” said O’Leary.

O’Leary had gone to the media about the Route 66 Malt Shop's refusal to pay the minimum wage.

Here is what the malt shop's owner Eric Szeman told us earlier this week, “We had a verbal agreement before newest min wage law went into effect that they would work at whatever wage we hired them at.”

Szeman says it was either that or the Nob Hill business would go out of business.

But, when the owner's son Andrew, who's a manager at the restaurant, showed up at O’Leary's home O’Leary says he took things too far.

“Now, it's not just an employment matter now it's a matter of assault,” O’Leary said.

That’s because of what O’Leary says Szeman brought with him, a baseball bat and machete.

“I said to him, ‘what did you bring that for to bash my head in?’ His response was, "Well, I was going to at first but then I just wanted to talk to you,” O’Leary said. “There was a flash through my head of him assaulting me I was in fear.”

O’Leary says he asked Szeman to leave his yard but instead he stood at the front gate.

“He started ranting again agitated,” said O’Leary. “His behavior is unpredictable.”

O’Leary says Szeman only left after he called the cops. We've learned this isn't the first time Szeman's been in trouble.

In 2011 he was charged with battery for grabbing his girlfriend at the malt shop; she was also an employee there. The case was eventually dismissed.

The malt shop owner, Eric Szeman, wouldn't go on camera, but told News 13 his son has quote "a Latin temper" and that his son admitted he quote "screwed up". Szeman also claims he didn't know his son was going to confront O’Leary. The younger Szeman told cops he only brought a bat, not a machete.

O’Leary didn't press charges against Andrew Szeman at first, but says he's now in the process of doing so, and he's trying to get a restraining order against him. He's also planning on suing the malt shop over the wage issue and retaliation he claims he faced.