Brigantessa Cook Taylor Hecht Arrested on Child Porn Charges
Taylor Hecht via LinkedIn
It’s certainly been a distressing few weeks for Philadelphia’s culinary community. Less than a month ago, Crow & Pitcher’s Alex Capasso was arrested and charged with one count of distributing child pornography. Now a former line cook at Passyunk Avenue’s Brigantessa is being charged with two counts of endangering the welfare of a child after being arrested in New Jersey.
According to a complaint filed on August 12th, Taylor Hecht, 28, allegedly possessed and distributed child pornography from his father’s home computer in Howell, New Jersey, last year using a personal email address that reads, in part, TaylorCooks. Judge Honora O’Brien Kilgallen set his bail at $125,000 and made three special provisions for his release: no phone, mail or other contact with the victim; no Internet use; and no contact with anyone under 18.
Hecht’s arrest came after the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office High Tech Crimes Unit received a report from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s CyberTipline. The Computer Crimes Unit of the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office took the investigation from there.
Hecht had only recently started working as a line cook at Brigantessa, a restaurant spokesman says. Given that he hadn’t shown up for work in the past few days and was unreachable by phone — and was still within the 90-day trial period — he was already considered terminated. But in a statement, the restaurant also said: “Taylor is not welcome back in the restaurant. These allegations are unacceptable and disgusting to all of us here at Brigantessa.”
According to his LinkedIn profile, Hecht, a graduate of The Restaurant School, previously worked as a butcher at Cannibal NYC in New York and as a line cook at The Blue Star in Colorado Springs, and at South Philly’s Taproom on 19th. He’s now being held at the Monmouth County Correctional Institution in Freehold, New Jersey. If convicted of both counts, Hecht could face a maximum of 15 years behind bars and be listed as a registered sex offender.
Follow @lspikol on Twitter.
