Charity lived large as it ‘stiffed’ staff

A Queens nonprofit — which counts indicted Democratic state Sen. Malcolm Smith and ethics-probed Rep. Gregory Meeks as benefactors — cheated its workers out of wages while throwing lavish parties for friends of the chairman and CEO, a new lawsuit charges.

Five former employees are suing the nowshuttered Jamaica Business Resource Center for $250,000, saying they stopped receiving full paychecks in 2012 and then were fired in 2013 for complaining about not getting paid.

“Throughout the course of this time, the JBRC would periodically pay the plaintiffs a fraction of what they were owed despite having additional funds to throw elaborate galas for the defendants’ friends and church members,” says the Manhattan civil suit, which was filed Monday.

The soirees “cost several hundreds thousand dollars (sic) but allowed the defendants to use the money they owed employees to maintain their personal reputa tions within the community.”

The allegedly stiffed staff — from senior business adviser Damir Hubana to custodian John Thomas — say chairman Edward Reed and CEO Timothy Marshall hosted the bashes at luxe Manhattan hotels like the Mandarin Oriental and The Pierre, according to their attorney, John Scola.

The JBRC, which was supposed to help minorityowned small businesses, was the recipient of a $275,000 grant from Smith in 2010. Democrat Meeks spoke at events at the center in 2010, 2011 and 2012.

And the year before the center started having money troubles, Marshall and Reed feted another scandalscarred politician — former city Comptroller John Liu — at the RitzCarlton. The event featured “an elegant champagne reception at the rooftop terrace overlooking the Hudson River.”

At the time, the organization said it had pulled in a total $585 million in government funding for “the creation and retention of hundreds of much needed jobs through the New York metropolitan area,” according to a 2011 press release.

But the group wasted taxpayer dollars by giving away nearly half of the 200 tickets at $300aplate dinners to friends, Scola said.

The center filed its last financial disclosure form last year. The longoverdue 2011 statement showed the group was in the red, having brought in only $298,817 while spending $656,492 on expenses, including $95,000 on Marshall’s salary.

The suit says the director and other board members sent worried emails about the payroll problems, with Reed directing Marshall in one message “to calm down the employees in order to avoid any uprising over the JBRC’s failure to pay [them] what they have earned.”

Reed and Marshall did not return messages seeking comment.