Columbia Restaurant Owner Faces New Felonies

A Columbia woman charged with using multiple aliases to accuse restaurant competitors of criminal activity also used fake names for testimony to a Missouri House committee alleging a conspiracy to obtain liquor licenses for undocumented immigrants. Crystal Umfress, owner of Casa Maria’s Mexican Cantina, was already facing trial in a Dunklin County arson-for-hire scheme when she was charged on September 18 with five new felonies. The new charges, which include forgery and filing a false document, also originate in Dunklin County.

The prosecution alleges she impersonated multiple public officials and others to claim that Mexican-born restaurant owners were bribing local public officials to cover up their immigration status and obtain liquor licenses. “I can’t speculate on what it is that set the lady off,” said Ron Huber, an associate commissioner of Dunklin County who was a target of the accusations cited in the forgery case. “I’ve never met her before in my life.

I don’t know who she is or why she’s out to try to discredit me or anything.”

Huber is named several times in testimony submitted to the Missouri House Special Interim Committee on Illegal Immigrant Crime. The committee was established in July to study whether undocumented immigrants are a source of crime and held public meetings in Springfield, Joplin, Kansas City, St. Joseph, St.

Louis, and Cape Girardeau. The written testimony tied to Umfress was submitted to the committee using multiple names and email addresses. The emails allege Huber is at the center of a widespread conspiracy to obtain liquor licenses for Mexican restaurants that in turn serve as fronts for drug dealing and other crimes.

The conspiracy allegedly extends to Columbia, Warrenton, Springfield, and other cities. The email testimony claims that undocumented immigrants who cannot legally obtain a liquor license are hiring people to front for their license applications, with officials turning a blind eye. Huber said he’s heard Umfress submitted testimony to the committee using false names.

“I’d like to know where that money went if I am supposed to have gotten it,” he said of the bribery allegation. The Missouri State Highway Patrol, which investigated the forgery case, cannot comment on its work or confirm any connection between Umfress and the accounts which contacted the legislative committee, said Sgt. Brad Germann.

The Dunklin County prosecuting attorney could not be reached for comment. Russell Oliver, Umfress’ attorney, also declined to comment. One email to The Independent, using the name Marissa Jenkins, identified the sender as a student reporter seeking help, with the signature line “Investigate Report University of Missouri Journalism.” A student named Marissa Jenkins was enrolled on a part-time basis during the summer term at MU, university spokesman Christopher Ave stated in an email.

She is not currently enrolled. The legislative testimony emails signed “Marissa Jenkins” do not identify her as a student or as a reporter. The committee chairman, Republican state Rep.

Columbia restaurateur’s conspiracy and forgery charges

Lane Roberts of Joplin, said he was not aware that any of the testimony submitted by email was from aliases. “I do know that we received a number – two, three or maybe four emails – with regard to something in Dunklin County,” Roberts said.

The committee was not set up to investigate specific charges of criminal activity, Roberts said. “Our focus is in trying to quantify what kind of crime and how much crime is associated with undocumented workers. It’s been very difficult to come up with any kind of way to quantify that.”

Roberts, a former Joplin police chief and former director of the Department of Public Safety, said his response to specific allegations made in testimony is to ask the person reporting the criminal activity to contact law enforcement.

“When somebody alleges some kind of an activity, there’s always a healthy degree of skepticism, because often it’s personal, it’s emotional, and we have to be very careful about taking it at face value,” Roberts said. Umfress first made news headlines last year when she was charged with paying $1,485 to someone to set fire to Lupita’s Mexican Restaurant in Kennett. She is set to go to trial in February in Butler County, where the case was moved on a change of venue.

Testimony submitted to the legislative committee under the name Maria Garcia in advance of its July 30 hearing blamed the owner of the building and Huber for the fire. The owner, the testimony states, paid the intermediary who found the person willing to set the fire “$10,000 to start a kitchen fire to Lupitas Mexican and implicate an American owner of a Mexican restaurant in Columbia, Missouri as she was trying to rat the commissioner out for a 20-year operation aiding illegal immigrants with IDs, liquor licenses, and drugs.”

Umfress has had numerous legal and personal issues coming at her rapidly for more than a year. On July 1, 2023, she obtained a marriage license to wed her partner at Casa Maria’s, Jesus Celestino Mendoza-Chavez, nine days before the fire hit the Kennett restaurant, which was owned by Mendoza’s brother.

She was charged in the arson on September 22, 2023. Mendoza-Chavez died on October 1, 2023, after sustaining severe injuries in a September 26 head-on collision in Columbia. She cited the death of her husband in an unsuccessful bid to have her $65,000 bond reduced.

On May 9, the state Division of Alcohol and Tobacco Control suspended the liquor license at Casa Maria’s for 52 days after finding a forgery on the application for renewal. Umfress is ineligible for a liquor license in her own name because she has a felony theft conviction on her record. The committee received submissions from “Melissa White,” using the same email address, in advance of two hearings.

In the first, for the July 11 hearing, she brought a Columbia competitor into her conspiracy allegations. The second, for the July 30 hearing, said her fiancé had been assaulted while at a Columbia restaurant and died the next day. Umfress’ emails began causing Huber problems about six months ago, he said.

He was contacted by state alcohol regulators about emails purporting to withdraw license applications, and more recently from accounting clients. He asked the prosecutor to be aggressive. “I kind of put some pressure on the prosecutor,” he said.

“I said, ‘before you know, nobody really knew what she was doing or whatever, but I’ve started to get phone calls from my clients and I’ll start losing clients.’ That’s going to be a big deal.”

It remains to be seen how the forgery and conspiracy accusations will impact Umfress’ existing legal troubles and what effect they will have on the Missouri House committee’s investigation into immigrant crime.

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• MissouriIndependent.”False names used in testimony to Missouri House committee studying immigrant crime”.
• ABC17News.”Columbia restaurant owner accused of impersonating southeast Missouri county commissioner to alcohol regulators”.
• NewsPress Now.”Missouri House Democrat calls for investigation of testimony given under false names”.

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