re: Legal question regarding withheld pay

Call the Dept of Labor. I had a dispute when I left a job about unpaid overtime (employer tried to say they dont owe OT because I was salaried, DoL agreed with me and forced employer to pay). Put a call into DoL and explained what happened to the lady and she said I was in the right and employer owed me OT pay. Gave the DoL rep permission to contact employer on my behalf and they ended up paying me.

At the very least, DoL should be able to tell your friend whether the employer legally has to pay him or not and can help out getting it settled if the employer is in the wrong