The owners and operators of a California restaurant chain were ordered to pay $140,000 in back wages and damages after allegedly using a fake priest to trick employees into confessing to workplace “sins,” authorities announced.
The owners of Taqueria Garibaldi, which has locations in Northern California, were accused of interfering with a federal investigation after a former employee testified that the restaurant offered workers a fake priest to elicit admissions of wrongdoing, according to a Labor Department press release dated June 12.
Meanwhile, “other employees reported that a manager falsely claimed that immigration issues would be raised by the department’s investigation,” said Marc Pilotin, regional solicitor of Labor, in the news release.
According to a federal lawsuit, Che Garibaldi and three other restaurant owners were accused of overtime violation, tip violation and record-keeping violation, with investigators saying that the owners denied employees overtime pay when working more than 40 hours in a week. The lawsuit was settled with a consent judgment in which the owners agreed to pay workers the $140,000.
Maria Parra, a former employee of a Taqueria location in Sacramento, said that one of the owners, Eduardo Hernandez, initially told her about the probe in 2018 and instructed her and other employees to tell federal investigators that they only worked 40 hours per week, got paid by check and took their breaks, according to her sworn affidavit.
In November 2021, Hernandez brought in a man who appeared to be a priest during work hours and asked employees if they wanted to do a confession to “help with mental health,” Parra said.
She recalled that the priest began asking her strange, work-related questions, unlike a normal confession.
“The priest asked if I had stolen anything at work, if I was late to my employment, if I did anything to harm my employer, and if I had any bad intentions towards my employment,” Parra said.
Prosecutors said that the owners had also illegally paid managers through the employee tip pool, threatened employees with retaliation and “adverse immigration consequences” for cooperating with the investigation, and fired an employee who they believed complained to the Labor Department.
In addition to the $140,000, the owners were ordered to pay an additional $5,000 to the Labor Department, according to court records.
Lawyers representing the owners did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.
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