{"id":71919,"date":"2025-11-27T08:07:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-27T08:07:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/71919\/"},"modified":"2025-11-27T08:07:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-27T08:07:11","slug":"el-cajon-business-pleads-guilty-to-immigration-charges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/71919\/","title":{"rendered":"El Cajon business pleads guilty to immigration charges"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The<\/a>San Diego Powder & Protective Coatings in El Cajon. (Photo courtesy of Google Street View)<\/p>\n

An El Cajon-area business that was raided by federal agents<\/a> earlier this year pleaded guilty Wednesday along with its hiring manager to federal charges related to employing undocumented workers.<\/p>\n

In March, federal agents swarmed San Diego Powder & Protective Coatings\u2019 warehouse on Magnolia Avenue and detained numerous individuals<\/a> at the business, which specializes in paint and coatings, including for military and government vessels.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors said the company\u2019s general manager, John Washburn, employed undocumented workers and let them live inside the company\u2019s warehouse. Washburn pleaded guilty earlier this year<\/a> to engaging in a pattern or practice of employing aliens, according to the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office, and was sentenced to one year of probation and ordered to perform 50 hours of community service.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, the company pleaded guilty and as part of its plea agreement, admitted Washburn and others hired people who did not have authorization to work in the United States.<\/p>\n

The company also agreed to forfeit $230,000 it gained as a result and agreed to take part in the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement\u2019s Mutual Agreement between Government and Employers (IMAGE) program. The program involves an agreement by participating companies to audits verifying that only people authorized to work in the U.S. are employed and training on topics like fraudulent documents and forced labor.<\/p>\n

The company\u2019s hiring manager, Karli Buxton, 41, also pleaded guilty and admitted she was aware some employees presented fraudulent documents indicating they were authorized to work in the country.<\/p>\n

According to a criminal complaint filed in Washburn\u2019s case, the investigation into the business involved an undercover Homeland Security Investigations agent who obtained a job there with a fraudulent Permanent Resident card and Social Security number.<\/p>\n

The agent secured the job with the help of a \u201cconfidential source\u201d who worked there and told Washburn he was looking to get his \u201cfriend\u201d a job.<\/p>\n

The complaint alleges that during the conversation, it was clear Washburn was aware the \u201cfriend\u201d was purportedly undocumented and that multiple other employees at the business were also undocumented.<\/p>\n

Washburn\u2019s plea agreement includes admissions that he knew at least 10 of the company\u2019s workers were undocumented immigrants and that he had discussed with other managers that some employees weren\u2019t legally authorized to work in the United States. Those discussions led to only assigning employees with \u201cgood paperwork\u201d to work at military bases due to the extensive screening procedures on-base.<\/p>\n

San Diego Powder & Protective Coatings admitted in its plea agreement that it knowingly avoided sending undocumented workers to military bases or ports of entry due to stricter screening procedures at those locations.<\/p>\n

READ NEXT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"San Diego Powder & Protective Coatings in El Cajon. (Photo courtesy of Google Street View) An El Cajon-area…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":71920,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[6568,38778,42203,42204,20396,74,76,75,42205,575,42206],"class_list":["post-71919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-el-cajon","tag-guilty-plea","tag-john-washburn","tag-karli-buxton","tag-raid","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-san-diego-powder-protective-coatings","tag-u-s-immigration-and-customs-enforcement","tag-undocumented-workers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71919","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=71919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71919\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}