Four of nine suspects arrested by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office in a raid last week at the Uncle Sam’s restaurant chain have been charged with identity fraud and related crimes.
The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office concluded there was insufficient evidence to charge the other five, who were turned over to federal immigration authorities, said Jerry Cobb, a spokesman for the office.
http://liarcatchers.com/identity_theft_investigation.html
The raid was the first since a federal court ruling in May, when a judge found that the Sheriff’s Office had engaged in racial profiling against Latinos.
The four defendants were charged in a complaint filed Monday in Maricopa County Superior with such charges as taking the identity of another and forgery, both felonies.
The defendants were identified in the complaint as Emigdio Munoz Gonzalez, Fernando Abundez Gonzalez, Victor Vargas Moran and Valentin Villanueva-Fernan.
The crimes were committed between 2002 and this month, according to the complaint.
Sheriff’s detectives arrested 10 people at two Uncle Sam’s locations, one on a felony warrant. They suspected during a nine-month investigation that as many as 121 people gained employment at the Uncle Sam’s chain since last October through the use of falsified documents and ID theft, spokesman Chris Hegstrom said.
During the raids, deputies attempted to find 70 of the employees working either at the Peoria location at 83rd Avenue and Union Hills Drive or the north Phoenix location at 32nd Street and Shea Boulevard.
