HELLS KITCHEN — A chef's brief stint at a Midtown Italian restaurant ended abruptly when he began harassing one of the managers with dozens of threatening emails and texts, according to police and restaurant workers.
At the end of September, Murray Hill resident Kamran Masseem, 37, was hired to design a new menu for Resette, an Italian restaurant at 7 W. 45th St., that's currently closed for renovations, manager Marisol Gomez, 25, said.
Soon after however, Masseem started missing work, calling out for his birthday and when he told managers his mother had died. They respected his need to grieve but on another day texted about his whereabouts and that flipped a switch, Gomez said.
"For some reason he got upset and he started sending threatening text messages," Gomez said.
"Meet me on 34th Street and Second Avenue and we'll handle this like men," Masseem had written in one of the texts Gomez saw. "We'll go into an alley and only one of us will come out."
"We couldn't work with him because he started threatening [the manager's] life," she said. "[The manager] just didn’t know what to do."
The restaurant staff reported Masseem to police on Oct. 5.
Masseem was arrested and given a desk appearance ticket for the incident. No information about his lawyer was immediately available.
