Thai restaurant owner indicted for defrauding employees
By Howard Pankratz
The Denver Post
Posted: 02/12/2010 11:30:30 AM MST
Updated: 02/12/2010 02:45:14 PM MST

A Boulder County restaurant owner has been indicted for defrauding his employees, harboring illegal aliens and failing to pay Social Security and Medicare taxes.

Boulder resident Opas Sinprasong, 51, who operates restaurants in Boulder, Louisville and Broomfield, brought Thai nationals to the United States between 2001 and 2008 and imposed an onerous two-year employment contract on them, according to the federal grand jury indictment.

Under the contract, the employees had to pay a "bond" of 50,000 Thai baht (approximately $1,500), which amounted to a substantial amount of money to the Thai employees, said the indictment.

He also allegedly told the employees they were liable for a penalty of 600,000 Thai baht (approximately $18,000) if the employee violated the terms of the contract or caused damage to Sinprasong. Employees were also required to obtain a personal guarantor in Thailand, who entered the contract with Sinprasong making the guarantor liable for the penalty in case of any violations by the employee.

Sinprasong allegedly also required employees to pay him a $3,000 "visa preparation fee," which the employees were to pay after arriving in the United States, in addition to the other fees.

Sinprasong is a citizen of Thailand who is legally in the United States. He operates Siamese Plate, Sumidas and Siamese Plate On The Go.

Michael Axt, the lawyer who represents Sinprasong, said he has yet to review the indictment but said if he had he could not comment at this time.

He added, however, that indictments tend to be slanted and one-sided.

The grand jury said Sinprasong typically directed the employees to start work at his restaurants upon arrival in the United States and he paid them "under-the-table" while deducting portions of the $3,000 "visa preparation fee" and other fees from their paychecks.

Once the fees had been fully paid, which usually took three to four months, Sinprasong would help the employees obtain Social Security numbers and then report a portion of their wages.

The indictment also alleges that Sinprasong used a dual payroll system that allowed him to conceal from his payroll records the "substantial" overtime he forced the Thai employees to work, which was typically 26 to 32 hours of overtime each week.

By failing to report all of the wages, the indictment said, Sinprasong failed to pay the employer's portion of Social Security and Medicare taxes.

The indictment also alleges that Sinprasong filed false immigration applications and harbored illegal aliens.

If convicted, Sinprasong faces a maximum of 20 years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine for wire fraud; a maximum of five years in prison for each count of failure to pay employee federal payroll taxes, and up to 10 years for each count of false swearing in an immigration matter.

If convicted, he also faces a potential maximum penalty of 10 years and a $250,000 fine for each count of harboring illegal aliens.

The indictment also seeks forfeiture of property.

http://oneoldvet.com/

www.denverpost.com