PAYCHECKS GET THE BOOT; WORKERS FILING CLAIMS AGAINST WESTERN WEAR.

Byline: Jason Takenouchi Daily News Staff Writer

Congressman Howard P. ``Buck'' McKeon and his brothers may have closed their chain of country wear stores, but former employees at the company said Monday they have been left holding a bag of bounced checks and broken promises.

Santa Clarita-based Howard and Phil's Western Wear closed its remaining stores two weeks ago, surprising many workers who say they were promised the stores would stay open. A liquidation firm will sell the remaining assets Thursday to pay off creditors.

But former employees say the chain's closing is the least of their problems.

Employees from several stores say they have had problems cashing company paychecks, and many say those checks have bounced.

Former Burbank store manager Steve Gehrt said his paycheck and those of four other employees bounced. Those checks were for the pay period before the company closed its doors, he said, and employees have yet to receive their closing check.

Gehrt estimated that about $4,000 in wages have not been paid to the store's workers.

``In our own little world, that's a lot of money,'' he said Monday.

Vanessa Matwiczak, former manager at the company's Valencia store, said she was one of the ``lucky ones'' who got her last paycheck because she left before the company shut down.

But Matwiczak said she also had problems with her last check.

After several attempts at cashing the check failed because she was told there were insufficient funds in the company's accounts, she said the company canceled the check and issued her another for half the amount.

``I wanted to file a police report because the check was bouncing,'' she said. ``There's a lot of unhappy people, that's for sure.''

Howard and Phil's spokesman and co-owner Joseph McKeon was unavailable for comment, his assistant said Monday.

Congressman McKeon, a 20 percent owner of the chain his parents founded in 1962, said Monday through a spokesman that he was unaware of the situation and had not been active in the company since he was elected to the House of Representatives in 1992. He had no further comment.

The company had over 50 stores at its height, but it declared bankruptcy and began reorganizing in 1996 after sales plummeted. It had only 16 stores earlier this year.

Employees told the Daily News they have filed or will file wage claims with the state Department of Industrial Relations, but they may have to wait in line for the company's assets.

Liquidation firm Development Specialists Inc. plans to sell the company's assets Thursday in a business liquidation procedure under state law that is similar to a Chapter 7 bankruptcy under federal law.

The largest secured creditor, Los Angeles-based Coast Business Credit, has a blanket lien on all the assets that is worth about $3 million. A secured creditor generally takes priority over other creditors.

Dean Fryer, spokesman for the state Department of Industrial Relations, said he was unsure who would get priority over the assets.

But he said the state will pursue workers' claims regardless of who has priority in the asset sale.

``The employer has the responsibility to pay their debts, including wages due to the employees,'' he said.

``If the employer does not pay back the wages due to the employees from the assets of the sale,'' Fryer said, ``we may have to pursue the issue in the courts.''

That may not be soon enough for people such as Patricia D. Lehman, former assistant manager at the company's Burbank store and a two-year veteran of the firm. Lehman said her last $498 paycheck bounced and she has not received her final check.

``I've got bills that need to be paid and no checks to cover them,'' she said.

``My phone's going to be shut off because of all this, because I can't pay it,'' she said. ``It's been real hard.''