Co-owners of Brothers Food Mart chain charged with federal immigration, tax evasion violations




  • PUBLISHED MAR 29, 2019 AT 5:44 PM | UPDATED MAR 29, 2019 AT 7:08 PM




A Brother's Food Mart at 148 Carondelet Street in New Orleans (Image via Google Maps).


Ramon Antonio Vargas

Co-owners of the popular Brothers Food Mart chain have employed immigrants living here illegally, paid workers cash under the table and evaded paying taxes for years, federal prosecutors alleged in court documents filed Friday in New Orleans.

Imad Faiez “Eddie” Hamdan and Ziad Odeh “Z” Mousa, owners of Louisiana’s 30-plus Brothers Food Mart stores and gasoline stations, are each named in a 72-count indictment that grand jurors handed up at U.S. District Court in New Orleans.

The indictment says that Hamdan, Mousa and a third unidentified person first fell under scrutiny nearly 10 years ago, when immigration investigators arrested a foreign-born employee of a Brothers outlet in Harvey who did not have the authorization required to work in the United States.


Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials met with Hamdan shortly after the employee’s arrest on July 24, 2009, and informed him they would audit whether Brothers workers were eligible to work in the nation.


Hamdan ended up admitting in 2011 that he and his company had violated laws governing employment eligibility, including requirements to prepare and retain accurate documents known as I-9 forms. Those forms require certain pieces of identification, such as Social Security numbers, establishing that a person has permission to be in the U.S. and can work legally.


Nonetheless, during a one-year period beginning in November 2012, ICE arrested three more foreign-born workers at Brothers stores in Jefferson Parish.


That triggered another employment eligibility audit that showed Brothers had run afoul of the law, according to Friday's 16-page indictment.


Meanwhile, it alleges, Hamdan and Mousa used cash to pay undocumented workers as well as supplement the paychecks of their managers, transactions that were recorded in internal reports and later reviewed by investigators.


But Hamdan and Mousa failed to report those cash payments on their tax returns, reducing the amount of taxes they would have to pay to the government and drawing the attention of the Internal Revenue Service, the indictment says.


The indictment charges Hamdan and Mousa with one count each of conspiracy to harbor, encourage and induce illegal immigrants; one count of plotting to defraud the U.S.; 49 counts of failure to withhold, account for and pay taxes; and 21 counts of aiding and assisting the preparation of false tax returns.


The two men face the potential of years of prison if convicted.

Their arraignment is set for April 16.

Attempts to contact the Brothers chain, which is renowned for its fried chicken, were unsuccessful Friday.


Hamdan's brother, Omar, was once involved in running a gasoline station in Gentilly.


The charges against Hamdan and Mousa come shortly after Somphon Chiwabandit and his Sticky Rice Thai Cuisine in Covington pleaded guilty to harboring and unlawfully employing immigrants in the country illegally in a similar case. Chiwabandit and the restaurant await sentencing.


Also, Felipe’s Mexican Taqueria said earlier this month that it had been forced to "part ways" with a number of its staffers in New Orleans who had turned in the documents required for employment but couldn't correct discrepancies that ICE identified during an I-9 audit.


Such audits predate Donald Trump's presidency, though his administration has stepped up their pace.

https://www.theadvocate.com/new_orle...dc5a485aa.html