Three weeks ago, Razak Dosunmu was sentenced to 15 months in federal prison after being convicted by a jury on two counts of offering illegal gratuities.
Its founder, Cleveland developer Carl Milstein, was convicted in the 1970s of offering illegal gratuities to a federal housing official and spent four months in Pennsylvania's Allenwood prison.
A tip is "To Insure Prompt Service" and you are offering a gratuity to those working hard to establish a positive experience.
Its president, Frederick W. McCarthy, pleaded guilty last September to offering a gratuity and was sentenced to a year and a day in prison.
The government form known as a Customs declaration bears in red ink across its bottom the notice that any voyager offering a gratuity to a baggage inspector is guilty of a crime, punishable by something less than death.
Today, Mr. McCarthy, whose firm at one time managed more than $500 million of state pension fund money, pleaded guilty to "offering a gratuity as a reward for an official action of the treasurer," said one of his lawyers, R. Robert Popeo.
For those eager to go, the company is sweetening the pot by offering passengers up to $420 in prepaid gratuities.
Celebrity Cruises, for example, is offering FREE drink packages (value up to $132 per cabin per day), FREE gratuities (value up to $30 per cabin per day) or shipboard credit up to $300 per cabin.
In addition to the bribe-receiving and tampering with public records counts, the complaint charged him with first-degree falsification of business records and first degree offering a false instrument for filing, both felonies, and receiving an unlawful gratuity, a misdemeanor.
Across the street from it, at No. 200, is Chef's Table at Brooklyn Fare, a two-year-old restaurant whose single offering is a prix fixe of 18 to 20 small courses for $185 a person (before tax and gratuity).
Tax and gratuities extra.
