Categories for Investigations

Mar 19

2025

More subsidies for restaurateur accused of wage theft

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A Niagara Falls restaurateur under investigation for allegations of wage theft received a third round of tax breaks Wednesday. With little discussion, the Niagara County Industrial Development Agency unanimously approved $51,000 in sales tax breaks for Muhammad Shoaib to open a Church’s Chicken, Jamba Juice and Carvel Ice Cream in downtown Niagara Falls. Meanwhile, five former employees, three of them managers, have come forward with new allegations that Shoaib and his wife, Hina Qureshi, failed to pay overtime and withheld tips from their workers. They told Investigative Post the couple altered payroll entries and told employees to destroy records and[...]

Posted 2 weeks ago

Jan 23

2025

Subsidized ‘Falls restaurateur accused of wage theft

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A Niagara Falls business owner who is seeking a second round of tax breaks for his growing portfolio of fast food restaurants cheats workers out of wages and tips, nine current and former employees have told Investigative Post.  Muhammad Shoaib, who owns 10 fast food restaurants — including the Moe’s Southwest Grill, A&W Restaurant and Papa Johns Pizza in Niagara Falls — frequently fails to pay hourly employees overtime and managers the weekly minimum salary set in state law, six current and former employees said. Six employees also alleged that Shoaib has withheld thousands of dollars in credit card tips[...]

Posted 2 months ago

Sep 10

2024

Jail deaths substantially higher than reported

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At least 57 Erie County jail inmates have died since 2005, a much higher number than previously reported. The death rate has barely budged in nearly a quarter century. Indeed, it has ticked up since Sheriff John Garcia took office, taking over from a predecessor widely criticized for the number of jail deaths on his watch. Forty-four prisoners, or one inmate every 4½ months, died under former Sheriff Timothy Howard, who became sheriff in June 2005, after five inmates had already died earlier that year under the previous sheriff, Patrick Gallivan. With eight deaths since Garcia took office in January[...]

Posted 7 months ago

Jun 28

2024

STAMP is but the latest offense

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Scott Logan, a member of the Tonawanda Seneca Nation, stands at the edge of the Big Woods. Photo by Garrett Looker. This is the second of a tw0-part series. The first story is here. Standing at the edge of the Big Woods, an old-growth forest that researchers say contains one of the most unique ecosystems in New York, Scott Logan feels he can see history repeating itself. What he’s looking at are Plug Power’s hydrogen-producing electrolyzers, two massive spheres towering over land that once belonged to Logan’s Tonawanda Seneca Nation. The Nation has new neighbors: The Science, Technology and Advanced[...]

Posted 9 months ago

Jun 27

2024

Hochul, Schumer pressured regulators over STAMP

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Editor’s note: This is the first of a two-part package. Our second story is here. In the drive to build a massive industrial park in rural Genesee County, the offices of Gov. Kathy Hochul and U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer pressured regulators to issue approvals for the project that ran afoul of environmental laws and policies, ignoring an indigenous nation’s legal rights along the way. Investigative Post found that: Aides to Hochul pushed top officials at the state Department of Environmental Conservation to work more quickly. Schumer aides intervened with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. And a string of state[...]

Posted 9 months ago

Jun 13

2024

Double trouble involving Buffalo cop

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A Buffalo Police vehicle parked on Niagara Street. Photo by Garrett Looker. Buffalo Police Officer Kiam Gunn knows the law from both sides of the badge. Before becoming a cop in 2018, Gunn, 44, was arrested at least five times on charges ranging from drug possession to assault. He’s also gotten in trouble while a police officer. During his six years on the force, Gunn has been the target of six internal affairs complaints. Two were upheld, resulting in discipline. Gunn was suspended without pay for 45 days in May 2022, after witnesses reported seeing him smoke marijuana at Delaware[...]

Posted 10 months ago

Dec 20

2023

IDAs look to dish out housing tax breaks

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This story was produced by Investigative Post and New York Focus and based on interviews with 30 lawmakers, officials, advocates, lawyers and developers, as well as a review of data and historical records. Gov. Kathy Hochul’s push for more housing has been interpreted by industrial development agencies as a green light to ramp up controversial tax breaks for developers. The state’s 107 IDAs have never been explicitly authorized to subsidize housing and some lawmakers say that’s for a reason: Housing creates few permanent jobs compared to the industrial and commercial projects the agencies were designed to support. When IDAs do[...]

Posted 1 year ago

Dec 14

2023

‘A Crazy System’: How arbitration returns abusive guards to New York prisons

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This article was published in partnership with The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization covering the U.S. criminal justice system. Sign up for their newsletters, and follow them on  Instagram, TikTok, Reddit and Facebook. The Marshall Project is distributing this story via Investigative Post, the (Albany) Times Union and New York Focus. A guard working at a Hudson Valley prison pummeled a 19-year-old shackled by the legs to a restraint chair. An officer at a facility near the Canadian border denied food to a man in solitary confinement 13 times over a week. Outside Albany, a guard told a prisoner, “That’s how you get dumped on your fucking[...]

Posted 1 year ago
Investigative Post