Sacramento Councilman and Supermarket Manager Plead Not Guilty to Federal Charges

Sean Loloee and Karla Montoya face charges of hiring undocumented workers, underpaying them, defrauding the government on COVID-19 relief funds, and obstructing a federal investigation.

• Sacramento City Council member Sean Loloee and Karla Montoya, the general manager of Loloee's four Viva Supermarket stores, have pleaded not guilty to federal charges of hiring undocumented workers, underpaying them, and defrauding the government on COVID-19 relief funds.
• The indictment alleges that since 2008, Loloee and Montoya conspired to employ many workers who lacked authorization to work in the United States and didn't pay them overtime in a bid to reduce labor costs.
• Loloee and Montoya are accused of controlling the workers through intimidation tactics, including making threats involving immigration authorities and making workers who didn't speak English sign untranslated documents before employing them.
• When Department of Labor investigators began looking into the supermarket chain, Loloee used various tactics to thwart the investigation, including lying to investigators and providing them with false documents, threatening employees and ordering them to lie about their jobs.
• Loloee is also charged with wire fraud for allegedly underreporting his stores' 2020 gross receipts in applications for COVID-19 relief funds from the Restaurant Revitalization Fund program, leading to an award of approximately $1.2 million based on fraudulent representations.

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Washington Post Associated Press Quartz U.S. Department of Justice