TEWKSBURY — The Market Basket board of directors is seeking a restraining order against fired executives Joe Schmidt and Tom Gordon after they alleged Schmidt had broken into the grocery chain’s Tewksbury headquarters and that the pair had repeatedly visited Market Basket locations in recent weeks despite being banned from all of the company’s properties.

In a statement Monday afternoon, Market Basket board of directors member Steven Collins claimed Schmidt had been caught on video using a master key to enter the company’s Tewksbury headquarters after hours.

“Market Basket associates are entitled to feel safe while performing their jobs whether at headquarters in Tewksbury or in stores. But in recent days, terminated executive Joseph Schmidt was documented on video after hours breaking and entering at the Tewksbury headquarters holding the master key that he has refused to return and moving around the offices totally unauthorized,” said Collins in the statement.

“In addition, Schmidt and Gordon traveled to 23 stores in multiple states in recent days, not to celebrate someone’s retirement, as feigned in an earlier violation of their suspension, but to intimidate employees, to precipitate a work slowdown, employee walkout and customer boycott. That’s why we are asking for a restraining order to enforce what we have already requested in writing: stay away from Market Basket property and leave associates alone.”

Collins said the pair “lost the privilege of being employed by Market Basket based upon recent past behavior.”

“This conduct by “men of integrity and honor” in the words of suspended CEO Arthur T. Demoulas goes way beyond ordinary loyalty to a job or a boss. It is against the law and crosses the line of acceptable behavior,” Collins said.

A filing by Market Basket seeks a restraining order against Schmidt and Gordon in Lowell Superior Court. A hearing has been scheduled for Thursday at 10 a.m.

Schmidt and Gordon were placed on administrative leave on May 28, along with CEO Arthur T. Demoulas, Demoulas’ brother-in-law Gerard Lewis and his two children, Madeline and Telemachus. Last month, Schmidt and Gordon were officially fired, while Arthur T. intends to enter into mediation with the board of directors that seeks to oust him.

The board has maintained the claim that Arthur T. and the others who were suspended were planning an employee walkout akin to what took place in the summer of 2014, when Arthur T. was fired by the board in favor of his cousin, Arthur S. Demoulas. Arthur T. would ultimately regain his post as CEO after he and his three sisters, Glorianne, Frances and Caren Demoulas, bought out the company from the Arthur S. side of the family in a $1.5 billion deal.

Now, the board designees for Arthur T.’s sisters, Collins, Michael Keyes and Chair Jay Hachigian, are driving the latest push to oust the longtime CEO.

In the filing for the restraining order, the company accuses Schmidt and Gordon of seeking “to instill fear among current Market Basket associates that after they are restored to their prior positions, associates who cooperated with Market Basket management in their absence will be targeted for retribution.”

“Their goal in waging this campaign is to encourage associates to slow down their work, or even walk off the job, and to pressure Market Basket management to reinstate them and Mr. Demoulas. This Court’s immediate intervention is necessary to stop Defendants from trespassing on Market Basket property as part of their unlawful and escalating campaign to disrupt the Company’s business operations,” the court filing read.

Gordon and Schmidt had admitted to previously entering Market Basket stores since their initial suspensions, but they said they visited the locations in Salem and Rochester, New Hampshire to visit two longtime managers who were retiring, which they said is a common practice among executives.

Now the company is accusing the pair of having visited at least 25 different Market Basket locations in the period of Aug. 4-9, including three stores in Lowell, one in Fitchburg and one in Nashua, N.H.

“Each Defendant, after entering a store, typically remained in it for approximately 10-20 minutes, and in some instances longer, walking through the store during its normal business hours, for the specific purpose of engaging on-the-job associates in conversations, and thereby disrupting store operations,” the filing states. “Defendants wore suits and ties during their visits, as they would during store visits prior to their termination, to convey to associates that they were acting as executives of the Company, who would soon be reinstated. A photo from surveillance footage of Defendant Schmidt leaving the Somerville, Massachusetts, Market Basket store on August 7, 2025, waiving to the security camera, appears below.”

The attached photo in the filing depicted a man who appears to be Schmidt, or to at least bear a resemblance to him, looking and waving directly at a security camera next to the store’s front door.

Also attached were security photos from Aug. 7, which the company claims to show Schmidt in the parking lot of the Tewksbury headquarters, near the front door, and then him entering the building’s loading bay.

The company filed for one count each of trespassing for Schmidt and Gordon. The main requested relief for the company includes granting an injunction prohibiting the two from entering Market Basket property and requiring Schmidt to return all master keys he still has access to.

A representative for Schmidt and Gordon said a statement would be forthcoming.

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This is a developing story.