WESTBROOK – The owners of three popular Maine restaurants, including the Fajita Grill on Main Street in Westbrook, are free on bail after being arrested last week on federal charges of employing illegal immigrant workers.
The Fajita Grill re-opened, according to posts on its Facebook page, starting Sunday, but with a limited menu and for limited hours. On Tuesday afternoon, handwritten signs in the restaurant’s windows welcomed customers back, and announced the restaurant’s hours this week as 4-9:30 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.
Inside, the tables were empty, but several patrons sat at the bar. A woman identifying herself as the manager said the restaurant had reopened, but declined further comment, and said neither Guillermo nor Hector Fuentes, the co-owners of the restaurant, were available.
A telephone call to the Cancun Restaurant in Waterville, also owned by the Fuentes brothers, confirmed that restaurant had also reopened. The reopening of the Cancun II, the brothers’ third restaurant, in Biddeford, could not be confirmed.
All three restaurants were shut down last Wednesday afternoon after federal agents from Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a division of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, raided the locations, and arrested both the Fuentes brothers.
Witness accounts indicate that several other people were taken into custody, but ICE officials and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Portland declined to confirm any other arrests or detainments. Officials at the Cumberland County Jail also declined to confirm any ICE detainees were being held there.
An ICE spokesman said this week that the raids were unrelated to a recent national ICE operation aimed at arresting wanted immigrant criminals.
The ICE investigation, according to a criminal complaint filed in federal court, began in 2008, after Westbrook Police Capt. Tom Roth informed federal agents that Westbrook police officers had stopped several vehicles and spoken to known employees of Fajita Grill who claimed to be Mexican citizens and had no U.S.-issued identification.
In his complaint, ICE Special Agent James O. Bell said Guillermo Fuentes, while working as a manager at El Potrillo, a Mexican restaurant in Atlanta, Ga., recruited more than a dozen illegal aliens from Mexico, and put them on a Greyhound bus to come up to Maine to work at Fajita Grill. Many of the workers, Bell said, worked at the other restaurants, too.
The complaint alleges that at one time, as many as 11 illegal immigrant workers “temporarily resided, rent-free, in the basement of the Fajita Grill. The workers slept on cardboard and blankets, and used buckets of water to bathe.”
Bell’s complaint alleges that the Fuentes brothers lived in the basement with them for the first month and a half after the restaurant opened. Bell wrote that he spoke to Westbrook Code Enforcement Officer Rick Gouzie, who told Bell he performed an inspection of the property. Gouzie, Bell wrote, spotted “a mattress, a television, a couch, and a bathroom” in the basement, and was told by Guillermo Fuentes only that some of the Fajita Grill workers used the area to “rest.”
This week, Gouzie confirmed seeing the basement as Bell described, including seeing a 52-inch television there.
“We had them remove all that,” Gouzie said, adding he confirmed the restaurant complied in a follow-up visit.
Both brothers appeared in federal court to answer one count each of harboring illegal aliens, a felony, and engaging in a pattern or practice of hiring illegal aliens for employment, a misdemeanor.
According to court records, Hector Fuentes was released on $10,000 cash bail, while Guillermo was released on $3,000 cash bail.
the prince posted at 3:46 am on Fri, Oct 7, 2011.
Its not my remarks that are inappropiate ,its you people that think that it's ok for these people to bring down our social security system and our welfare system.The money that we work for to keep them in pot and beer.A retired man or woman that worked all their lives that are American citizens that collect a small stipend from social security to keep what they worked for all their lives to give to these illegals which make double or triple of what an American Citizen would get.Give me a break Obama.I mean Mr. taxpayer.You should be ashamed of what the retired American citizen gets to what these illegals get.You must be one of those or an outsider that don't belong in Maine.Especially Westbrook.I was born and raised in Frenchtown where at one time they thought we were outsiders.Funny that we're the ones that built this city and this state and deserve to be recognized as the leaders that we are but outsiders like you fought to take that recognition away from us.At least the frenchman came in legally and didn't expect state help or anybodys help for that matter because we worked for it.I don't think you talk for the people of Westbrook your just one of those libtards that talk out of your azz.Go back to where you come from and leave the city of Westbrook to the citizens that belong here.The Prince Write in the Prince for Mayor
04092 Taxpayer posted at 8:49 am on Mon, Oct 3, 2011.
Your remarks are inappropriate at best. The people of Westbrook do NOT approve your message.
the prince posted at 1:08 am on Fri, Sep 30, 2011.
Why in all heckl would you let a restaraunt reopen that is under investigation for hiring illegals.Is mayor hilton making money on this?Get the f****** mexicans out of your city except for the Guiterrez's which were there before anybody else.Went to St Hyacith with them.Great people.Stop with the african and asian welfare population thats taken over our city.As the sociailist and marxist way of life if they have control over the population then we have a dictator which is a democratic way of doing things.Step in Mayor Hilton.You have to vote this piece of crap out of office.Must of been a community organizer before she became Mayor.You can't afford another four years of her stupidity w/raising taxes and calling on outside interest to settle internal problems.There's probably nobody in city hall that lives in Westbrook or is from Westbrook.Pardue is a joke and so is the people he hires.Take back the city of Westbrook and make a better living for the citizens not outsiders.I would kick the welfare reciepients out and bring Westbrook to be the industrial capitol of Cumberland County that it was back in the 60's and 70's. Vote for the Prince