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Chuy's owners, accountant arrested; restaurants shut down
by Max Jarman - Apr. 20, 2011 03:02 PM
The Arizona Republic
Chuy's Mesquite Broiler restaurants in Arizona and California were raided by federal agents Wednesday in the culmination of a lengthy investigation into alleged tax fraud and illegal hiring practices at the chain.
Chuy's father-and-son owners, Mark Evenson of Paradise Valley and Christopher Evenson of Oro Valley, were arrested Wednesday along with the company accountant, Diane Strehlow of Tempe.
The three are scheduled to be arraigned in U.S. District Court in Tucson Thursday on 19 counts ranging from the unlawful hiring and harboring of illegal aliens to conspiracy to defraud the IRS and tax evasion.
The indictment followed a lengthy investigation conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, Homeland Security
Investigations agents and the Internal Revenue Service.
Chuy's operates 13 locations in Arizona, including six in metro Phoenix and seven in the Tucson area. The company has nine locations in Southern California. There was no answer at a sampling of restaurants called Wednesday afternoon.
According to the indictment, the Evensons hired undocumented aliens to work in their restaurants' kitchens and paid them under the table with no taxes withheld or reported to the IRS.
U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke accused the Evensons and Strehlow of dodging at least $400,000 in payroll taxes over the course of two years in order to maintain their illegal workforce.
"There should be no place in our economy for employers who cynically exploit and defy the U.S. tax code to take advantage of illegal labor," he said.
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