Dishing out 9 mos. for soup exec
OPEN WIDE and . . . say what?
An Upper East Side dentist, accused of dropping his pants and masturbating in front of a younger man who spurned his crude come-ons, was freed without bail Thursday after his arrest in the curious case.
“You’re so cute,” court papers quoted Dr. Michael Krochak as saying while he loosened the reticent 24-year-old’s tie and unbuttoned the man’s shirt. “I can’t take it anymore.”
Krochak wore blue jeans, a red T-shirt and a brown jacket at a Manhattan Criminal Court arraignment where his lawyer denied the allegations. He blew a kiss to his husband, who was sitting in the courtroom.
Cops countered that Krochak confessed to his sexually inappropriate actions in a phone call with the victim as the NYPD monitored their chat.
Krochak took the younger man to his E. 60th St. office around 9 p.m. on March 27 — and plied him with red wine at the NYC Smile Spa, detectives alleged.
Things were soon spinning out of control, with the dentist trying to yank the man’s pants off despite the victim’s repeated shouts of “No! No! No!” the complaint continued.
The 60-year-old sex-crazed dentist, once rebuffed, angrily rebuked the young man: “You’re such a prude. Everyone does this.”
The persistent Krochak managed to remove the man’s pants and perform oral sex on him before demanding a reciprocal sexual favor, authorities charged.
Once the man rejected Krochak’s overtures, the dentist stripped naked and masturbated — while his secretary did paperwork inside another room at the office, cops said.
The dentist then escorted the younger man outside, where Krochak bought him some food from a street cart and took him to a nearby train station.
Cops said the controlled call to Krochak was arranged after the 24-year-old contacted police about the assault.
Authorities said the dentist was previously arrested for forcible touching and sexual abuse in 2003 when he allegedly groped an 11-year-old boy in a Penn Station restroom.
The outcome of the case was sealed, and Krochak is not listed on the state’s sex offender registry — as he would be if found likely by a judge to repeat that behavior.
Defense attorney Michael Bachner insisted Krochak, who stood mutely in court, was innocent of sexual misconduct and criminal sexual act charges.
“There is absolutely no dispute, your honor, that Dr. Krochak is going to come back and he’s going to vigorously defend the charges,” said Bachner at the Manhattan Criminal Court hearing.
The supposed “victim” actually returned to become a patient of the dentist, according to Bachner.
The snarky Korchak bolted from the Manhattan courthouse through a back door, with his husband trying to protect the dentist from waiting photographers.
“Don’t they have better criminals to deal with?” Krochak asked snidely, one day after his arrest in the office where the crime allegedly occurred. A DISGRACED soup company exec will have to stew in prison for nine months.
The former chief financial officer of Soupman — a business styled on the recipes of the man who inspired “Seinfeld’s” fanatical “Soup Nazi” — was sentenced Thursday after admitting to tax evasion.
Robert Bertrand didn’t tell the IRS about certain employee cash payments and stock awards from 2010 to 2014, Brooklyn federal prosecutors said. The unreported compensation was more than $2.85 million, which amounts to more than $593,000 in unpaid taxes, including Medicare and Social Security.
Bertrand’s lawyer was hoping Brooklyn Federal Judge Pamela Chen would say “No jail for you!” but that wasn’t the case. And she didn’t spoonfeed the court her reasoning, either.
“This was a deliberate, sustained and thought-out campaign to defraud the government of tax revenue,” the judge said in sentencing Bertrand.
Defense lawyer Michael Weil said Bertrand wasn’t greedy but resorted to the distasteful tactics to keep the company in business.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Kaitlin Farrell said Bertrand knew it was wrong — and was even warned by an outside auditor — when sidestepping the reporting requirements and not paying taxes.
“I did make a mistake. I am remorseful for it,” said Bertrand, 63, who pleaded guilty in December.
Bertrand’s been doing 70-hour workweeks as an Uber driver, Weil said. Once he gets out of prison, he’ll have to keep his foot on the gas because he must pay back almost $80,000.