An Orange County staffing company owner and three others were arrested Thursday on a federal indictment alleging they cheated the Internal Revenue Service out of more than $90 million, money prosecutors say was used for the purchase of homes, rental properties and luxury vacations in Hawaii, Tokyo, Paris, Dubai and elsewhere.<\/p>\n
Lorena Padilla, 49, of Villa Park, the case\u2019s lead defendant, is charged with one count of wire fraud conspiracy, one count of money laundering conspiracy, and six counts of failure to account for and pay over employment taxes, according to the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n
She is expected to make her initial appearance and be arraigned Thursday afternoon in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana.<\/p>\n
Also arrested and scheduled for arraignment Thursday in Los Angeles federal court are:<\/p>\n
\u2014 Selina Medina Preciado, 30, of Whittier, Padilla\u2019s daughter<\/p>\n
\u2014 Carlos Padilla, 40, of Chino, Lorena Padilla\u2019s brother<\/p>\n
\u2014 Pablo Araque, 55, of Downey<\/p>\n
Two other defendants charged \u2014 Melanie Medina, 31, of Yorba Linda, who also is Lorena Padilla\u2019s daughter; and Susana Cardenas, 45, of Long Beach \u2014 are expected to appear in federal court in the coming weeks. Law enforcement is looking for defendant Janine J. Garcia, 39, also known as \u201cJanette Ortega,\u201d of Seal Beach.<\/p>\n
Federal prosecutors allege that along with tax fraud, the defendants defrauded numerous clients by failing to pay employment taxes withheld from the wages of temporary workers \u2014 many of them described as undocumented immigrants \u2014 and used the unpaid taxes to fund their luxurious lifestyles. Some of the defendants documented their extravagant lifestyles on Instagram and other social media, according to the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n
Lorena Padilla controlled several businesses based in Los Angeles and Riverside counties: Platinum Staffing in Montebello, Payroll Staffing Solutions Inc. in Industry, Three Star Global Inc. in Corona, and Next Level Staffing in Maywood, authorities said.<\/p>\n
The companies provided workers and human resources services to client businesses in various industries in the Los Angeles area. For all temporary workers staffed with clients, the companies claimed to provide payroll tracking, paycheck preparation and distribution, the withholding and payment of payroll taxes to federal and state authorities, the preparation and filing of quarterly federal employment tax returns and the maintenance of valid workers\u2019 compensation insurance.<\/p>\n
According to the indictment, from January 2012 to September 2024, the defendants allegedly defrauded the staffing companies\u2019 customers, the IRS, and California\u2019s Employment Development Department, the California state agency responsible for collecting California employment taxes.<\/p>\n
To conceal their failure to report employee wages and taxes and pay employment taxes, Padilla, Garcia, Medina and Preciado caused Next Level Staffing to hire large numbers of undocumented immigrants as temporary workers, prosecutors contend.<\/p>\n
The defendants anticipated the undocumented immigrants would be less likely to file federal income tax returns and be less likely to alert the IRS to Next Level\u2019s ongoing failure to account for and pay over employment taxes, court papers show.<\/p>\n
The U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office alleges that from 2020 to 2025 alone, the defendants collectively understated the staffing companies\u2019 federal employment taxes by more than $44 million. Total losses to the U.S. Treasury from the scheme exceed $90 million, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n
Lorena Padilla and several other defendants used the ill-gotten gains for personal expenses and purchases, including properties in a trio of Southern California counties \u2014 a $3 million ranch in Riverside, a $2.5 million home in Whittier and a $3.5 million home in Yorba Linda, federal prosecutors say.<\/p>\n
The defendants also allegedly purchased rental properties in Ontario and Corona, went on luxury family vacations in Hawaii, Tokyo, Paris, Dubai, Italy, and Aspen, Colorado, hired musical acts to perform at a joint birthday party for Preciado and Medina in October 2021, and bought Lamborghinis and Rolls-Royces, according to court papers.<\/p>\n
If convicted as charged, the defendants would potentially face decades in federal prison, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An Orange County staffing company owner and three others were arrested Thursday on a federal indictment alleging they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":64157,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,7,29789,1312,138,17435,3130,137,100,611,5518,29597,26996,8636,7537],"class_list":{"0":"post-64156","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-anaheim","8":"tag-anaheim","9":"tag-anaheim-headlines","10":"tag-anaheim-news","11":"tag-california","12":"tag-chino","13":"tag-courts","14":"tag-crime-and-public-safety","15":"tag-downey","16":"tag-fraud","17":"tag-los-angeles-county","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-orange-county","20":"tag-san-bernardino-county","21":"tag-seal-beach","22":"tag-villa-park","23":"tag-whittier","24":"tag-yorba-linda"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64156\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}