Mexican Restaurant Owners Plead Guilty to Hiring Undocumented Aliens and False Statements

Mexican Restaurant Owners Plead Guilty to Hiring Undocumented Aliens and False Statements

The following press release was published by the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys on June 16, 2014. It is reproduced in full below.

Portland, Maine: United States Attorney Thomas E. Delahanty II announced that

brothers, Guillermo Fuentes, 38, of Westbrook, Maine and Hector Fuentes, 40, of Waterville,

Maine, pleaded guilty today in U.S. District Court to knowingly hiring 10 or more

undocumented aliens in a 12-month period and making false statements to federal agents.

Court records reveal that the employment charge relates to hiring practices at the Fajita

Grill restaurant in Westbrook. The false statement charge arises out of post-arrest statements the

defendants made to law enforcement officers in September 2011 regarding the hiring practices at

the Fajita Grill and at the Cancun Mexican Restaurant in Waterville, in which they falsely stated,

among other things, that federally required documentation regarding the immigration status of

employees had been properly completed.

The defendants face up to five years in prison, a fine of $250,000, or both. They will be

sentenced after the completion of a pre-sentence investigation report by the U.S. Probation

Office.

The investigation was conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s

Homeland Security Investigations and the United States Department of Labor, Office of

Inspector General.

Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys

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