Did ex-SLO County restaurateur exploit undocumented workers? Federal charges filed
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- Federal indictment alleges Cloustons exploited undocumented workers for profit.
- Colt Grill owners accused of wage theft, tax evasion, and illegal labor practices.
- Feds say shell company staffed restaurants with undocumented, underpaid workers.
A former San Luis Obispo County restaurant owner who was convicted of elder abuse now appears to have been accused of underpaying undocumented immigrants and failing to pay proper employment taxes in Arizona.
In 2014, Robert Kenneth Clouston was sentenced to one year in jail after authorities said he took property from a 99-year-old Templeton woman’s trust without her knowledge and took out $500,000 in loans on the property. He was also ordered to pay $327,000 in restitution.
At the time, the prosecution said he used those funds to his own benefit, including running his two restaurants, Estrella and Robert’s Restaurant in Paso Robles and Robert’s Restaurant & Bar in Arroyo Grande.
Clouston, however, said he borrowed money against the woman’s property to fulfill her goal of giving money to charity — not to help fund his restaurants.
Now, the U.S. Attorney’s Office appears to have accused Clouston of taking advantage of vulnerable people again — this time undocumented immigrants.
According to a new federal indictment, a Robert Clouston and wife, Brenda Clouston, both 61 — as well as undocumented Mexican immigrants Luis Pedro Rogel-Jaimes, 33, and Iris Romero-Molina, 29 — allegedly conspired to hire undocumented workers for the Clouston’s Arizona restaurants to help them cut costs on labor by underpaying employees.
All four defendants “benefited financially from the plan and did not pay proper employment taxes for the workers,” the news release said.
When reached for comment Friday, a representative of the U.S. Attorney’s Office said they were unable to confirm if the Robert Clouston accused in the recent indictment and the former San Luis Obispo County restaurateur were one and the same.
But public records indicate a 61-year-old Robert Kenneth Clouston had registered addresses in Templeton; Sedona and Cottonwood, Arizona; and Foley, Alabama — the latter three all locations of restaurants mentioned in the federal indictment.
Previous Tribune files also list a Brenda Clouston as the local restaurant owner’s wife. Public records show a similar pattern of addresses in Templeton, Arizona and Alabama associated with a woman of that name.
Restaurant owner didn’t properly fill out employment forms for ‘Pedro’s people,’ indictment alleges
According to the release, the Department of Homeland Security Investigations served a search warrant alongside other law enforcement agencies at five Colt Grill restaurants and 12 residences in two states on Wednesday after a three-year labor exploitation investigation.
The Cloustons own all five Colt Grill locations, which are in Cottonwood, Prescott, Prescott Valley and Sedona, Arizona, and one location in Foley, Alabama.
According to the indictment, Robert Clouston was aware that Arizona law required Colt Grill employees to be paid time-and-a-half for any work over 40 hours per week since at least November 2021.
The indictment alleges Clouston told a manager not to be concerned with receiving paperwork to properly calculate and pay taxes for some newly hired employees because they were “Pedro’s people.”
“Robert Clouston advised that ‘Pedro’ would bring workers up from Mexico and was seen on at least one occasion handing (Rogel-Jaimes) cash while shaking hands and discussing bring more Mexican national workers up from Mexico,” the indictment said.
Clouston also instructed two managers at the Sedona location of his restaurant to fire United States citizen employees “to create employment openings for undocumented Mexican nationals for the purpose of having less expensive labor costs,” the indictment said.
He also leased several residences across northern Arizona to house his undocumented employees, the indictment said.
Then, in September 2022, Romero-Molina created a shell company called R&R AZ Cleaning, that advertised as a cleaning company but actually operated as a staffing company for the Colt Grill restaurants, the indictment said.
According to the indictment, either Colt Grill nor R&R Cleaning required undocumented workers to fill out proper paperwork for employment.
That same month, Clouston, Rogel-Jaimes and Romero-Molina agreed to create a plan where Rogel-Jaimes and Romero-Molina would find undocumented workers to work at Colt Grill locations, the indictment said.
Clouston would then allegedly sign leases to house the workers and acquire vehicles to transport them to work. Clouston and his wife would then pay Rogel-Jaimes and Romero-Molina for finding undocumented workers by sending funds from their Colt Grill revenue to the cleaning company, the indictment said.
Romero-Molina would then pay the Colt Grill employees less than minimum wage and did not pay them overtime, the indictment alleged.
“Through this process, defendants Robert Clouston and Brenda Clouston avoided paying an accurate minimum wage, time-and-a-half wage and required taxes in an amount beneficial to them,” the indictment said.
All four defendants were charged with the same five federal counts: pattern and practice of knowingly employing unauthorized aliens, conspiracy to bring illegal aliens for profit, conspiracy to transport illegal aliens, conspiracy to harbor illegal aliens and conspiracy to encourage and induce an illegal alien to unlawfully enter the United States.
If convicted, they face up to 10 years in prison and up to a $250,000 fine for each of the conspiracy charges, federal prosecutors said. They also face up to six months in prison and a $3,000 fine for each unauthorized employee for the pattern and practice charge.
