Thread: Chuy's owners charged with immigration, tax violations (update)

Chuy's owners charged with immigration, tax violations

Posted: Apr 20, 2011 12:58 PM


TUCSON - The father and son owner's of the Chuy's chain and their accountant have been arrested and arraigned in federal court on tax and immigration violations.

According to a release from the Department of Homeland Security, Mark Evenson, 58, and his son Christopher Evenson, 39, are owners of Chuy's Mesquite Broilers, a regional chain with restaurants in Arizona and California. They have been charged, along with the company's accountant, 47-year-old Diane Strehlow, with a variety of criminal violations, including: unlawful hiring and harboring of illegal aliens, conspiracy to defraud the IRS and tax evasion.

"For nearly two years, these defendants are alleged to have knowingly dodged hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes in order to maintain an illegal workforce," said U.S. Attorney Dennis K. Burke. "That deceitful practice, which hurts all law-abiding tax payers and employers, must stop. There should be no place in our economy for employers who cynically exploit and defy the U.S. tax code to take advantage of illegal labor."

According to the indictment, illegal workers were hired to work in the kitchens on the restaurants, while legal U.S. workers were hired as servers and other jobs. Allegedly, the company paid undocumented workers under the table while paying authorized workers through the normal payroll method.

"Employment tax evasion undermines public confidence in our tax system and businesses that don't follow the rules have an unfair advantage over their competitors. Tax evasion is not a victimless crime and results in the loss of future Social Security or Medicare benefits for the employees and loss of tax revenue to the United States government," stated Dawn Mertz, special agent in charge, IRS Criminal Investigation.

Court documents show that Mark Evenson allegedly directed employees not to run personal information for undocumented workers, telling them that the government would "kick it back" or would "come and pick them up."

After receiving a complaint about undocumented workers at a restaurant in Lake Havasu City, he allegedly told an employee that "throwing some American people in there," would stop the complaints.

The indictment further alleges that since at least 2008, the Evensons and Strehlow have been filing fraudulent tax forms, underreporting their taxes and failing to pay at least $400,000 in Federal Insurance Contribution Act (Social Security and Medicare) taxes.

The three defendants will be arraigned in federal court in Tucson tomorrow. If convicted, the Evensons could each face over 80 years in prison and over $5 million in fines. Strehlow faces a maximum sentence of 40 years and a $2 million fine.

http://www1.kvoa.com/news/chuy-s-owners ... iolations/