Restuarant owner withholding money
Tldr is that I and a bunch of former employees worked for a restaurant on salary with no overtime and today I went to get my last paycheck and was told I dont deserve anything.
Full story
I started working there mid January this year and signed a sheet of paper with with my GM and chef that said my salary and I'd get a 10% bonus on November 1st ($5500 for the bonus pre tax).
In March the owner made the GM fire his wife who was the front of house manager and after that the chef, his wife, and 2 other employees in the kitchen formed an llc to open their own restaurant without telling the owner of this restaurant. The owner installed cameras with audio recording in the kitchen in September.
As a side note all of summer the temperature in the kitchen never went below 90 and for all of July would peak at around 110 farenheit.
The time for bonuses came around and the owner refused to pay because he found out about their llc (knowing they were gonna quit soon) and gave the chef two weeks. We all ended up walking out that night 30 minutes before close and didnt clean or turn any equipment off. We also took all of our personal items like thermometers and knives with us. The next day the owner already had 3 new chefs including a renowned Michelin star winning chef.
I went to the business an hour ago to ask for my last check for the two days I worked before walking out. I started an audio recording on my phone before going in and it's kinda hard to hear but the owner says within the first few minutes he says I dont deserve anything for walking out.
I called the department of labor because I learned the day after quitting what a salary exempt employee is and they said the restaurant didnt make enough money for us to be owed backpay for overtime and we would have to sue for it. The restuarant only opened in October of last year so that's why they didnt make the required $500,000 but this year they've done over 2 million so far. After I learned that I made a complaint online through the deparment of labor and that was on November 6th. I got told to wait 10 business days for a response.
I want to know how good of a case I have for getting my overtime backpay, bonus, and last 2 days check. Should I call the department of labor even though it hasn't been 10 days? My overtime comes out to between 10k and 30k depending on how they would calculate my hourly rate and hours since the schedule wasn't accurate (scheduled to 9 everyday but would take anywhere between 30 and 90 minutes to close). I routinely worked 55 hours and in summer and 65 hours in the summer so my hourly comes out to around $17 and my salary is $55,000.
In north Carolina if that matters.