After being ordered by the government to pay employees nearly $350,000 in overtime, executives at Upper Crust devised a scheme to wrest the money back, including cashing forged checks and slashing workers’ wages, according to the pizza chain’s former chief financial officer.

Upper Crust founder Jordan Tobins “yelled and screamed about the investigation” after the US Department of Labor informed the Boston chain it owed money to more than 100 employees, David Marcus said in an affidavit filed on Friday in Suffolk Superior Court in a lawsuit brought by former workers over back pay.