A man in Texas was caught stealing more than a million dollars worth of fajitas over nine years and may be looking at serious jail time.
The Cameron County District Attorney’s Office said that Gilberto Escamilla, an employee with the Juvenile Justice Department, was charged with a first-degree theft, a felony, and is the subject of an ongoing investigation.
‘If it wasn’t so serious, you’d think it was a Saturday Night Live skit. But this is the real thing,’ District Attorney Luis V. Saenz told The Brownsville Herald.
Prosecutors say that on August 7, Escamilla took the day off to go to a medical appointment.
While he was away, a driver from Labatt Food Service – the Juvenile Justice Department’s meat vendor – called to verify an order they were preparing to deliver: 800 pounds of fajitas. An employee at the department first dismissed the order as a mistake, given the fact that the facility does not serve fajitas. It was then that the driver told the woman on the phone that his company has been filling the fajita order to the facility for nearly a decade.
‘The receiver of the call rushes off to the supervisor and conveys to her the discussion that had been had, and that breaks the case,’ Saenz said.
‘When Mr. Escamilla reports to work the next day, he is confronted with the discussion and he admits he had been stealing fajitas for nine years.’
Escamilla was immediately fired from his position and placed under arrest on August 9.
When police searched his home, they discovered his refrigerator packed with fajitas.
