Thursday 3/28/2024
A former employee of a Texas trucking company featured in a reality TV show was sentenced Tuesday to more than five years in prison for stealing more than $1.4 million from the firm.
Veronica Rios — an administrative assistant who processed payroll at Texas Chrome Transport Inc. in Atascosa — overpaid some employees in exchange for a cut between 2017 and 2020. Rios also added non-employees, including her then-boyfriend, to the payroll and pocketed part of their fraudulent payments.
Nearly all of the padded-paycheck recipients said that they gave Rios at least half of the extra money they received, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Daphne Newaz. The prosecutor said financial records corroborated some of their statements.
"You were this temptress who lured these otherwise law-abiding people into becoming crooks," U.S. District Judge Fred Biery told Rios, 44, in San Antonio's federal court.
Biery handed Rios a sentence of 63 months on each of six counts of wire fraud that she pleaded guilty to in September. The sentences run concurrently. Prosecutors dismissed 12 other fraud counts.
The judge also ordered Rios, of Salado, to pay $1.4 million in restitution and turn herself in to prison officials by July 8.
She'll serve three years of supervised release once she gets out.
When Rios said she had "zero" money for restitution, the judge asked her what happened to the money from the scheme.
"That's a good question — that's what I keep asking," Rios said. "It didn't come to my pocket."
Federal guidelines recommended a prison sentence of 51 to 63 months for Rios.
David Kimmelman, Rios' public defender, requested a sentence closer to 51 months, telling Biery that Rios "feels a lot of remorse for what she did."
"She accepts it was wrong," Kimmelman said. "Your comments about how she got these people involved struck a chord with her. It’s true, but I think she never solidified that within her own mind. I think today it’s something she acknowledges."
But when the judge gave Rios the opportunity to address company owners Raul and Lorena Mendez, Rios didn't seem as contrite.
"Speechless," Rios said as she faced the Mendezes. "I trusted them a lot. I worked really hard day and night, and even though they did this to people I love and care for ..."
"They did this to other people — they only picked me mostly and the people I love and care for," she said.
Addressing Biery, the prosecutor noted that Rios blamed the Mendezes, in case the judge hadn't caught the nuance.
"As far as where the money went, (Rios) was taking lavish vacations and bragging about it on Facebook," Newaz said. "She bought herself new clothes, a whole new wardrobe, and was driving around in a Hummer. That’s where the money went."
Among those who received inflated pay in Rios' scheme was her boyfriend at the time, 50-year-old Mario Martinez, who never worked for the company. Biery sentenced him Tuesday to five years of probation and ordered him to pay $432,000 in restitution.
Martinez, who received about that amount in payroll deposits, told the judge he gave more than half of the money back to Rios. He had been charged with three counts of wire fraud but pleaded guilty to a single count as part of a plea deal.
Unlike Rios, Martinez, a truck driver from Von Ormy, apologized to the Mendezes.
"Perdón," Martinez said. "I took a lot from you all. I'm sorry. I apologize. I was wrong — wrong doesn’t even cover it. I felt bad knowing I looked at you all so many times, and it was wrong."
Court records said that Rios also overpaid company employee Pedro Guillen, 49, more than $424,000, and another worker, Tommy Byrum, more than $140,000.
Rios paid her daughter-in-law, Amanda Hernandez, more than $30,000 after Hernandez had left the company in May 2019, according to court filings.
Prosecutors alleged that one of Rios’ friends, Maira Vargas, received $30,000 in payroll deposits, and another friend, Guadalupe Alsidez, got $200,000. Neither ever worked for the company.
Guillen, Byrum, Vargas and Alsidez pleaded guilty for their roles and were previously sentenced to probation.
Texas Chrome Transport’s website said the Mendez family started the firm in 1975 as Mendez Trucking in 1975 and built it into one of the largest independent trucking contractors in the state.
Since 2011, the company has hauled fracking sand to oil production sites across Texas, the website said.
The Mendez family also runs Texas Chrome Shop in Atascosa, and its members were featured in "Texas Trocas," a Spanish-language reality series for Discovery en Español about tricked-out semis. It is also on Apple TV.
After sentencing, Rios told a reporter to "ask them" when asked what she meant when she addressed the Mendezes.
The Mendezes said that Rios "has always been like that" — blaming them for her conduct.
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