Restaurant used fake priest to hear workers' confessions, feds say

[douglas9]

The owners of a Northern California taqueria chain will pay $140,000 in back wages and damages after federal investigators found they used a fake priest to elicit “confessions” of wrongdoing from their employees, the Labor Department announced this month.

Labor officials began looking into allegations that employees weren’t being paid overtime wages at the Sacramento-area chain Taqueria Garibaldi in May 2021. As investigators contacted employees, they learned that a man who purported to be a priest had been introduced by the owner “to get the sins out” of the restaurant workers, one former employee said in an affidavit filed in the case.

The priest began the meetings with a prayer, Labor Department investigator Raquel Alfaro testified last year. He then asked the employees whether they were loyal to owner Eduardo Hernandez and whether they had ever stolen from him.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/06/19/fake-priest-california-restaurant/