Long Island employers stole nearly $4 million from their workers last year.

Patrick Atta didn’t know he was owed tens of thousands of dollars for his time as a live-in home health aide in Suffolk County, caring for a man with Parkinson’s disease, until years after he’d left the job.

The 41-year-old Ghana native said he’d forgo breakfast or wake in the middle of the night to tend to his client, who suffered from hallucinations, working roughly 91 hours a week without overtime.

He earned about $1,600 each week but is now expected to receive $35,000 in back pay and nearly $38,000 more in damages after the company and federal labor investigators recently reached a $6.4 million settlement for wage theft from nearly 500 aides.

“I thought maybe if I complained a lot they were going to fire me,” Atta said. “I was afraid back then.”
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