Boulder owner of Siamese Plate indicted on immigration violations (Boulder Daily Camera)

Boulder owner of Siamese Plate indicted on immigration violations
DA's Office: 'We were shocked at the conditions under which these individuals were working'
By Vanessa Miller Camera Staff Writer
Posted: 02/12/2010 07:34:55 PM MST

A 51-year-old man who owns several Siamese Plate restaurants in Boulder and Broomfield counties has been indicted by a federal grand jury on suspicion of harboring illegal aliens, making them work up to 32 hours of overtime a week without pay and committing other immigration and tax violations.

Opas Sinprasong, who was a citizen of Thailand and has been in the United States on a "non-immigrant principal investor" status since at least 1994, turned himself in on the indictment Thursday and made his initial appearance in U.S. District Court in Denver.

Sinprasong runs "Sumida's" and "Siamese Plate," Thai and Japanese restaurants in Boulder, and "Siamese Plate on the Go," which has locations in Boulder, Louisville and Broomfield. From 2001 to 2008, Sinprasong sponsored numerous Thai nationals' entry into the United States as "specialty workers" for his restaurants and claimed in immigration applications that they had specialized skills essential to his businesses' efficient operation, according to the indictment. The Thai workers were admitted into the country for two-year terms that could be extended.

Sinprasong required all his Thai employees to enter into a two-year employment contract with detailed terms about fees they owed him, their monthly salaries and lodging, which he provided, according to the indictment.

Among the terms, employees were required to pay Sinprasong a "bond" of about $1,500, and they had to pay him a penalty of about $18,000 if they violated the contract.

Each employee also had to have a personal guarantor in Thailand, who agreed to be financially liable to Sinprasong for the penalty if the employee violated a term of the contract. Employees had to pay Sinprasong a $3,000 "visa preparation fee" after arriving in the United States.

Sinprasong paid them "under the table" while deducting portions of the $3,000 visa fee and other fees from their paycheck, the indictment said. Once the fees were paid off -- it typically took between three and four months -- Sinprasong helped the employees obtain Social Security numbers and then started reporting only a portion of their wages, according to the indictment.

Sinprasong devised a scheme to defraud the Internal Revenue Service and the Thai employees by using a dual payroll system that hid the substantial amount of overtime he made the Thai employees work from his records, according to the indictment. Sinprasong typically made the Thai employees work 26 to 32 hours of overtime a week without paying the overtime rate, the document said.

"It was part of the scheme for Sinprasong to direct the Thai employees to clock out when they were still working," the indictment said.

Sinprasong also is accused of failing to report the wages he did pay the workers on quarterly federal tax returns.

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the IRS Criminal Investigation's Denver office investigated the case, which started with a report to the Immigration Legal Center of Boulder County and the Consumer Protection Division of the Boulder County District Attorney's Office.

"The fact that this kind of alleged indentured employment was happening right here in Boulder is astonishing," said Cynthia Taylor, director of the District Attorney's Office consumer division. "We were shocked at the conditions under which these individuals were working."

Taylor said the Thai employees "essentially had their freedom to go back to their country taken away."

"We are gratified to see this indictment," she said. "This is so significant for the civil rights of individuals."

According to Boulder police, one of Sinprasong's Thai employees reported him to authorities in 2004 for refusing to return foreign employees' passports. Sinprasong, at the time, told police that he would return the passports. But he defended the practice to the Camera, saying employees have "run away" when their passports are returned, breaking their contracts and violating their work visas to stay in the country.

The two-year contracts are necessary, Sinprasong said then, because of the cost of hiring an employee from Thailand. Sinprasong said he paid employees "market" wages.

"They know how much they get, what they have to do, how long they have to work," he said at the time. "If they don't agree, then they don't have to take it."

Boulder police spokeswoman Sarah Huntley said Sinprasong also received a citation in 2001 for violation of occupancy of units.

Details of the living conditions of his employees were not made public Friday, but the indictment mentioned two apartments at 3180 29th St. and 3030 O'Neal Parkway and ordered forfeiture of any property involved in the alleged illegal activity.

Siamese Plate stores remained open Friday. An employee who answered the phone at Boulder's 3033 28th St. restaurant said, "We are not allowed to talk."

"Right now, we are still open," he said. "I don't know about next week."

If convicted, Sinprasong faces up to 20 years in federal prison for each of 10 counts of wire fraud against him; up to five years in prison for each of 40 counts of failure to pay employee federal payroll taxes; up to 10 years in federal prison for each of five counts of false swearing in an immigration matter; and up to 10 years in prison for each of four counts of harboring illegal aliens.

Sinprasong's next scheduled appearance in U.S. District Court in Denver is on Wednesday.