SAN ANTONIO — A Texas man has admitted he wrongly accepted more than $432,000 in unearned payroll funds as part of a scam against a prominent Texas trucking firm.
According to the San Antonio Express News, Mario Martinez, 49, is the sixth person to plead guilty in the case.
His girlfriend, Veronica Rios, is the last defendant in the scheme, which diverted more than $1.4 million from Texas Chrome Transport Inc. and its related company, MJR Truck Lines Inc.
Forty-three-year-old Rios was an administrative director who processed payroll as part of her duties, according to court documents.
In 2017, she began overpaying employees in exchange for some of the money, the documents allege.
Rios also added non-employees to the payroll; they gave Rios part of the payments they received. Among them was Martinez, who never worked for the company.
Martinez received more than $432,000 in payroll deposits and had been charged with three counts of wire fraud. He pleaded guilty to a single count as part of a plea deal.
The documents show that between 2017 and 2020, Rios overpaid company employee Pedro Guillen, 49, more than $424,000, according to the court documents.
Rios also overpaid employee Tommy Byrum more than $140,000 between 2018 through 2020. In addition, Rios paid her daughter-in-law, Amanda Hernandez, more than $30,000 after Hernandez had left the company in May 2019.
Prosecutors allege one of Rios’ friends, Maira Vargas, received $30,000 in payroll payments. They said that another friend, Guadalupe Alsidez, received $200,000; however, neither ever worked for the company.
Guillen, Byrum, Hernandez, Vargas and Alsidez have all pleaded guilty for their roles.
Texas Chrome Transport was founded in 1975 by Raul Mendez Sr. as Mendez Trucking, and he and his family grew the business, making it one of the largest independent trucking contractors in Texas, according to the company website.
The company has hauled fracking sand to oil sites across Texas since 2011. They have 215 rigs in their fleet, according to the website.
The Mendez family also runs Texas Chrome Shop in Atascosa. Its members are featured in Texas Trocas, a Spanish language reality series for Discovery en Español about custom big rigs.
The Trucker News Staff produces engaging content for not only TheTrucker.com, but also The Trucker Newspaper, which has been serving the trucking industry for more than 30 years. With a focus on drivers, the Trucker News Staff aims to provide relevant, objective content pertaining to the trucking segment of the transportation industry. The Trucker News Staff is based in Little Rock, Arkansas.
