Boulder restaurateur going to prison for exploiting illegal workers

By Kieran Nicholson

The Denver Post
Posted: 02/11/2011 01:42:10 PM MST
Updated: 02/11/2011 04:04:12 PM MST

A Boulder man who ran several restaurants in the metro area was sentenced yesterday in federal court to 366 days in prison for exploiting workers, harboring illegal aliens and failing to pay taxes.

Opas Sinprasong, 52, a Thai national, has agreed to leave the United States after his prison term is complete, federal prosecutors said in a media release.

Sinprasong was also ordered to pay a $4,000 fine, and $754,975 in restitution, with $509,618 going to former employees and $245,357 to the IRS, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office, District of Colorado.

Indicted by a federal grand jury in February 2010, Sinprasong pleaded guilty in October to multiple aggravated felony counts.

Sinprasong ran Thai and Japanese restaurants in Boulder, Louisville, and Broomfield, under the names Siamese Plate, Sumidas, and Siamese Plate On The Go.

From 2001 through 2008, Sinprasong sponsored Thai nationals' admissions to the U.S. as workers for his restaurants.

During this time Sinprasong filed false immigration applications and harbored illegal aliens, prosecutors said, and he required all of his Thai workers to enter into two-year employment contracts.

Terms of the contracts included fees and monetary penalties, which ran into thousands of dollars, investigators found. Sinprasong paid workers "under-the-table" and deducted fees from their checks.

He ordered Thai employees to work between 26 and 32 hours of overtime weekly, without paying overtime wages, and Sinprasong kept two sets of payroll books to conceal records from the IRS, the release said.

As part of the sentence, Sinprasong will forfeit two homes in Boulder worth about $766,000.

He is free on a $1,000,000 secured bond and was ordered to report to prison within 15 days of the sentencing.

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