Restaurant hired fake priest to get ‘scoop’ on employees

Fake priest asked employees if they stole from their job or were tardy
Labor Department: Restaurant denied employees overtime, threatened them
Owners ordered to pay $140,000 in back wages, damages to 35 employees.

Laura Meehan

Updated: Jun 21, 2023 / 06:19 PM CDT

Pastor wearing face mask standing at the altar and reading a bible.

(NewsNation) — California restaurant owners are accused of using a fake priest to scare their workers into making “confessions” in a scheme the U.S. Department of Labor calls “among the most shameless of corrupt actions employers have used” against their employees.

According to one employee, owners of Taqueria Garibaldi brought a fake priest into the restaurant, who asked employees questions like “Had they stolen from the employer? Been late for work? Done anything to harm their employer? Had bad intentions toward their employer?”

Karen Clark, with the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division, said this priest was asking about workplace issues “just to get the scoop.”

An investigation by the Department of Labor found that Taqueria Garibaldi denied employees overtime pay and that employers illegally paid managers from the employee tip pool.

According to the department, Taqueria Garibaldi also threatened workers with retaliation and adverse immigration consequences for cooperating with the investigation. One worker who owners believed had complained to the Department of Labor was fired.

After agreeing to a consent judgment, Eduardo Hernandez, Hector Manual Martinez Galindo and Alejandro Rodriguez, of Che Garibaldi Inc., were ordered to pay $140,000 in back wages and damages to 35 employees.

Che Garibaldi Inc. operates two Taqueria Garibaldi restaurants in Sacramento and one in Roseville.

“You have a number of workers who may be threatened — they’re threatened by their immigration status, they’re likely Catholic, and to bring in a priest, it just brings it beyond anything that we can really imagine,” Clark said.

The Sacramento Archdiocese says they’ve investigated and “are completely confident” the priest was not with the Diocese of Sacramento.

In the United States, it is considered a felony to impersonate a member of the clergy.

“The Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division is committed to holding employers accountable, even with crazy schemes like this,” Clark said. “We won’t tolerate workplace retaliation or discrimination or threats, and we will definitely take action against employers who do so.”