BREAKING: Grinning Teamsters found NOT guilty of extortion after being accused of trying to bully Top Chef into giving them jobs

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Four Teamsters have been found not guilty of extortion after being accused of trying to bully Top Chef into giving them jobs.

Boston labor union Teamsters John Fidler, 52, Daniel Redmond, 48, Robert Cafarelli, 46, and Michael Ross, 62, were seen in court hugging and slapping each other's backs when the jury returned after an almost 20 hour deliberation to find them not guilty on all charges.

A grinning Cafarelli was seen leaving court with his lawyer, followed out by his fellow union members, as his lawyer addressed the media outside.

The foursome had been accused of attempted extortion for allegedly using strong-arm tactics to extort jobs as drivers with union-scale wages on the top reality show. They had all denied charges of conspiracy to extort and aiding and abetting.

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Four Teamsters have been found not guilty of extortion after being accused of trying to bully Top Chef into giving them jobs. Robert Cafarelli, left, grins as his attorney, Carmine Lepore, right, addresses the media outside court today

Cafarelli (seen leaving Boston Federal Court on Tuesday) was one of four Teamsters cleared of extortion. Behind him was fellow cleared suspect Daniel Redmond

Both Daniel Redmond (left) and Micheal Ross (right) were also spotted keeping a slightly lower profile as they left court today

 John Fidler (pictured leaving court last week) as the fourth Teamster cleared after being accused of attempted extortion for allegedly using strong-arm tactics to extort jobs as drivers with union-scale wages on the top reality show

The incident began when the labor union started picketing outside the Steel & Rye restaurant in Milton, Massachusetts on June 2014 where Top Chef's Season 12 was expected to shoot.

Shocking video of the encounter appeared to show the group racially abusing Top Chef producer Ellie Carbajal when she arrived at the scene to shoot.

Redmond was filmed calling her a 'f***ing towel head' and a 'c**t'. Later, he added: 'At least I'm not a scab like you'. 

'They got in my face. I was scared. I couldn't believe they were doing this,' Carbajal said, according toPage Six. 

Carbajal filmed their comments with her cell phone which was used as evidence in court.  

What it did not capture was the men allegedly 'swarming' star host Padma Lakshmi's, 46, car later and threatening to 'smash' her 'pretty little face in'. 

Television show host Ladkshmi looked stony-faced while leaving court last week where she testified and said she was 'terrified' of crossing the picket line where a group of Boston Teamsters were protesting the show's production outside of a local restaurant in 2014

The men claimed the production was taking work away from local people and are accused of demanding that workers from their union - the Brotherhood of Teamsters - be hired. 

Lakshmi testified that she was 'terrified' when one of the men confronted her, telling the court the Teamsters actions reminded her of 'really serious schoolyard bullying.'

She claims that when the show's crew pulled up to the parking lot, they allegedly received threats from the Teamsters who also tried to 'extort' the show's producers for jobs.

As the car approached the restaurant, she claimed one of the men put his elbow so far into the window she could 'kind of smell him.' She also claimed he had leaned into her window and snarled: 'Oh lookie here. Such a pretty face. What a shame about that pretty face.'

According to witnesses, Fidler also reached into Lakshmi's chauffeured van, threatened to hit her and called her a 'f****** w****'. 

Teamsters Daniel Redmond (left) and Robert Cafarelli (pictured right) were found not guilty of extortion on Tuesday. Both men are pictured in stills from a shocking video which appeared to show them racially abusing Top Chef producer Ellie Carbajal

Cafarelli later told Carbajal: 'You know what you are' while fellow union member Mark Harrington (right) filmed her. Harrington pleaded guilty to extortion last year but the others deny it

Prosecutors say she was left 'paralyzed' by fear. 

The protesters also allegedly hurled slurs at her gay talent coordinator, Jason Duffy, who was driving the car. Duffy later testified and claimed the men called him a 'pickle,' a derogatory term.

Lakshmi said she told Duffy: 'I really don't want to cross this line. I really didn't want anything to do with it. I don't like confrontation.'

The court heard testimony from Top Chef judge Gail Simmons, who was also involved in the incident.

Simmons told the court she was 'incredibly afraid' after one of the men allegedly stuck his head in the car and began 'yelling at us.' 

When asked if the men could have just been hecklers, Simmons replied: 'No, I wouldn't have called that heckling.' 

Teamsters and Top Chef producers were pictured squaring off (pictured) outside of Steel & Rye restaurant, in what prosecutors call an extortion attempt and Teamster defense attorneys call a union demonstration

Top Chef judge Gail Simmons was seen arriving at Milton, MA restaurant in 2014 where Teamsters got into a heated confrontation with the nonunion show producers

Simmons, who was also involved in the incident, said the encounter left her 'incredibly afraid'

According to an FBI report, Lakshmi told authorities she felt like the police officer at the scene was 'friends with the UNSUB and had the tone of a 'traffic conductor' not that of a 'man with a badge and a gun.'

She told the court that police officers at the scene but did nothing to intervene.

'Lakshmi thought they were all in cahoots in some way,' the papers state.   

Producer Ellie Carbajal (pictured immediately after the attack) testified against the men

Top Chef had previously been picketed by Teamsters in Las Vegas, Washington, D.C. and Texas. But Lakshmi told authorities that on a scale of one to ten with ten being the worst, this incident ranked '12'. 

However, the Teamsters' lawyers argued their clients, who could have faced up to 20 years each if found guilty, were simply exercising their right to protest a nonunion production company for not hiring Massachusetts workers.

'That is not extortion,' said Kevin Barron, Ross's lawyer. 'That is labor organization activity.'

A decades old U.S. Supreme Court decision generally prevents courts from charging union members with extortion if their actions are in aid if a legitimate labor dispute. 

Mark Harrington, another union member who was there, copped a plea deal last year and was sentenced to six months home confinement, two years probation, and $34,123 in fines and restitution.

The show's cast and crew had arrived in Boston in May 2014 to film a segment with the city's mayor Marty Walsh. 

But when Walsh discovered the episode was filming at a nonunion shop, his aide Kenneth Brissette called NBC in an attempt to get his episode pulled from the lineup of the show's 12th season, NBC executive David O'Connell told the court Wednesday.

'He said he made a big mistake putting the Mayor on a nonunion show,' O'Connell told the court Brissette said in a phone call and asked if NBC, Bravo's parent company, could 'take the Mayor out of the show,' I said that wasn't possible.'

Before the Teamsters and Top Chef squared off at a restaurant outside of Boston, two other Boston restaurants had canceled their planned shoots after phone calls from City Hall telling them the group had planned to picket. 

The union members were representatives of the group Teamsters Local 25, who were picketing the production and are accused of extortion (Stock photo) 

It was alleged the mayor's aide, Kenneth Brissette called NBC in an attempt to get the episode - which featured Mayor Marty Walsh - pulled from the lineup of the show's 12th season, because it was a nonunion show