A meals truck builder who had turn into an emblem of the perils of working within the cellular meals trade was arrested Tuesday in Modesto by the Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Division on suspicion of theft by false pretenses, in accordance with regulation enforcement officers.
Fernando Ochoa Jauregui, 28, and his firm, 8A Meals Vans, had been accused by shoppers of not delivering automobiles and refusing to return their partial or full funds.
Different clients have alleged that they acquired vehicles and trailers so poorly constructed that they couldn’t be used. And a few have accused Ochoa of taking again automobiles they’d bought from him and his firm.
Ochoa was being held at county jail on $500,000 bail, the sheriff’s division mentioned. He’s anticipated to be arraigned Thursday on a number of counts associated to his alleged theft.
The builder’s arrest comes two months after a report by The Occasions detailed the plight of his alleged victims, 15 of whom had claimed losses totaling greater than $475,000.
Sad 8A Meals Vans clients from throughout California described toiling as cooks, custodians and building staff, saving for years to get an opportunity at beginning their very own enterprise, solely to have their desires dashed. Some mentioned that the alleged losses had been particularly painful as a result of they got here by the hands of one in all their very own: a Mexican immigrant who lived within the Central Valley and beforehand labored at an industrial store.
Ochoa, who touted his enterprise savvy and penchant for partying in Spanish corridos, denied most of the allegations in a February interview. The flashy, Corvette-driving builder acknowledged some errors, chalking them up partly to his inexperience in enterprise. He based Ceres, Calif.-based 8A Meals Vans in 2019.
“I’m making an attempt to cope with this scandal so I could make my enterprise higher once more — I had an actual firm,” Ochoa mentioned in February. “I’m not a enterprise professional. I simply know the best way to construct vehicles.”
He couldn’t be reached for remark Wednesday.
For Norma Estevez, a Salinas resident who paid $60,000 for 2 meals trailers that she mentioned she by no means acquired from Ochoa, information of his arrest gave her a way of reduction.
“We’ve waited such a very long time for today to return,” mentioned Estevez, who alongside along with her husband, Sebastian Delgado, grew to become entangled with Ochoa in 2021. “I’m very joyful as a result of … his arrest reaffirms what we have now been saying all alongside.”
Estevez, who mentioned she misplaced a profitable contract to supply meals to agricultural staff after not receiving the trailers, filed a lawsuit towards Ochoa for breach of contract and different claims in July 2022. Months later, the events agreed to a settlement that referred to as for Ochoa to pay Estevez and her husband about $70,000, together with legal professional’s charges, in accordance with courtroom paperwork.
She mentioned that Ochoa has solely paid $30,000 — and hopes that the federal government will seize his belongings and public sale them off as a technique to repay her and a number of the different alleged victims.
“And if not, then I hope he goes to jail and stays there for all of the emotional ache he precipitated us,” Estevez mentioned.
Ochoa beforehand acknowledged that he didn’t meet an agreed-upon deadline for supply of Estevez’s trailers. “Norma’s scenario was that if she didn’t get the trailers by a sure date, then she wasn’t going to wish them,” he mentioned.
The builder has been featured in Spanish media as a cautionary story of the meals truck trade. A 2023 Univision report on Ochoa warned these coming into the enterprise to train excessive warning.
The controversy comes at a fraught second for distributors in Southern California. A number of within the L.A. space had been robbed by gunmen final summer season in brazen assaults that spotlight the dangers of promoting meals on Southland streets.
