Nov 23, 2025 Current Resources

Orange County Staffing Company Owner Arrested on Federal Indictment Charging Her with Masterminding $90 Million Tax Fraud (scheme relied on hiring undocumented immigrants)

Orange County Staffing Company Owner Arrested on Federal Indictment Charging Her with Masterminding $90 Million Tax Fraud (scheme relied on hiring undocumented immigrants)
US DOJ: U.S. Attorney's Office, Central District of California ^ | November 20, 2025 | U.S. Attorney's Office, Central District of California

Posted on 11/22/2025 11:46:48 AM PST by A_Niceguy_in_CA

SANTA ANA, California – An Orange County staffing company owner and three other defendants were arrested today on an eight-count federal indictment alleging they cheated the IRS out of more than $90 million and defrauded numerous clients by failing to pay employment taxes withheld from the wages of temporary workers – many of them illegal immigrants – and used the unpaid taxes to fund their luxurious lifestyles. Some of the defendants documented their extravagant lifestyles on Instagram and other social media.

Lorena Padilla, 49, of Villa Park, the case’s lead defendant, is charged with one count of wire fraud conspiracy, one count of money laundering conspiracy, and six counts of failure to account for and pay over employment taxes. She is expected to make her initial appearance and be arraigned this afternoon in United States District Court in Santa Ana.

Also arrested and scheduled for arraignment today in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles are:

Selina Medina Preciado, 30, of Whittier, Padilla’s daughter; Carlos Padilla, 40, of Chino, Lorena Padilla’s brother; and Pablo Araque, 55, of Downey. Two other defendants charged – Melanie Medina, 31, of Yorba Linda, who also is Lorena Padilla’s daughter; and Susana Cardenas, 45, of Long Beach – are expected to appear in federal court in the coming weeks. Law enforcement is looking for defendant Janine J. Garcia, 39, a.k.a. “Janette Ortega,” of Seal Beach.

Lorena Padilla controlled several businesses based in Los Angeles and Riverside counties: Platinum Staffing in Montebello, Payroll Staffing Solutions Inc. in Industry, Three Star Global Inc. in Corona, and Next Level Staffing in Maywood. These companies provided workers and human resources services to client businesses in various industries in the Los Angeles area. For all temporary workers staffed with clients, the companies claimed to provide payroll tracking, paycheck preparation and distribution, the withholding and payment of payroll taxes to federal and state authorities, the preparation and filing of quarterly federal employment tax returns, and the maintenance of valid workers’ compensation insurance.

According to the indictment that a federal grand jury returned on November 13, from January 2012 to September 2024, the defendants defrauded the staffing companies’ customers, the IRS, and California’s Employment Development Department (EDD), the California state agency responsible for collecting California employment taxes.

To secure business for the companies, the defendants lied to potential customers that the companies would handle all employment taxes and workers’ compensation insurance on all temporary workers that the companies provided. In fact, the defendants caused the staffing companies to continuously fail to pay all applicable federal and state employment taxes. From January 2018 to 2023, the defendants paid workers’ compensation insurance premiums on only a small percentage of the staffing companies’ payroll.

To conceal their failure to report employee wages and taxes and pay employment taxes, Padilla, Garcia, Medina, and Preciado caused Next Level Staffing to hire large numbers of illegal aliens as temporary workers. The defendants anticipated the illegal immigrants would be less likely to file federal income tax returns and be less likely to alert the IRS to Next Level’s ongoing failure to account for and pay over employment taxes.

From 2020 to 2025 alone, the defendants collectively understated the staffing companies’ federal employment taxes by more than $44 million. Total losses to the United States Treasury from this scheme exceed $90 million.

Lorena Padilla and several other defendants used the ill-gotten gains for personal expenses and purchases, including a $3 million ranch in Riverside; a $2.5 million home in Whittier; a $3.5 million home in Yorba Linda; rental properties in Ontario and Corona; luxury family vacations in Hawaii, Tokyo, Paris, Dubai, Italy, and Aspen, Colorado; musical acts to perform at a joint birthday party for Preciado and Medina in October 2021; and luxury cars, such as Lamborghinis and Rolls-Royces.

An indictment contains allegations that a defendant has committed a crime. Every defendant is presumed to be innocent until and unless proven guilty in court.

If convicted, the defendants would face a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison for the wire fraud conspiracy count, up to 10 years in federal prison for the money laundering conspiracy, and up to five years in federal prison for each failure to pay employment tax count.

IRS Criminal Investigation is investigating this matter.

Assistant United States Attorneys James C. Hughes of the Major Frauds Section and Alexander Su of the Asset Forfeiture and Recovery Section, and Trial Attorney Dominick Giovanniello of the Tax Division are prosecuting this case.

TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; News/Current Events; US: California
KEYWORDS: aliens; california; crime; fraud; illegals; undocumented

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To: A_Niceguy_in_CA

I guess Loren won’t being living the high life, anymore ... hope she looks good in orange!

2 posted on 11/22/2025 11:49:30 AM PST by Jane Long (Jesus is Lord!)

To: A_Niceguy_in_CA

Anytime there is power or money, the worst vermin will show up.

To: Liz

4 posted on 11/22/2025 11:50:59 AM PST by GOPJ (Soros & democrats back criminals, dope dealers, illegals & terrorists.<P><I><B><big><center></B>)

To: A_Niceguy_in_CA

The government is lax about searching for fraud. If it was coming directly out of their own pockets, they would care.

To: A_Niceguy_in_CA

The “Open Border” policy was just a front to this and other huge, organized crime syndicates.

6 posted on 11/22/2025 11:52:40 AM PST by Brandonmark (November 5, 2024 - A New Day in America!Adam Schiff PARDONED criminal!)

To: A_Niceguy_in_CA

Amerika, the land of opportunity.

7 posted on 11/22/2025 11:53:55 AM PST by RckyRaCoCo (there are demons out there, and they look like people)

To: A_Niceguy_in_CA

It’s amazing how many Somali, Mexican and American black women fraudsters there are.

To: A_Niceguy_in_CA

It takes a Swamp village

9 posted on 11/22/2025 12:01:06 PM PST by delchiante

To: A_Niceguy_in_CA

There are thousands of companies doing the same thing.

10 posted on 11/22/2025 12:14:53 PM PST by HYPOCRACY

(Wake up, smell the cat food in your bank account. )

To: Dalberg-Acton

Agree it’s why you see so many of them in politics and democrats get busted the most.

11 posted on 11/22/2025 12:28:01 PM PST by Vaduz (?.)

To: ProtectOurFreedom

Don’t forget Indian and Paki..

12 posted on 11/22/2025 12:44:23 PM PST by Bikkuri

To: All

Mastermind Lorena and hubby.

13 posted on 11/22/2025 12:50:33 PM PST by Liz ("Socialism is a wonderful idea. It's just that it's been disastrous." Thomas Sowell.)

To: A_Niceguy_in_CA

and the worst part of all of this is that the companies that hired the temp workers whose tax with-holdings were not paid are still on the hook with the IRS for those payments ... so it wasn’t really the IRS that was defrauded, but the clients of the fraudulent staffing companies ...

14 posted on 11/22/2025 12:59:06 PM PST by catnipman ((A Vote For The Lesser Of Two Evils Still Counts As A Vote For Evil))

To: catnipman

“”so it wasn’t really the IRS that was defrauded, but the clients of the fraudulent staffing companies””

The clients AND employees sent to jobs. Barely mentioned was the CA Franchise Tax Board for withholding on the STATE taxes and never paid...not to mention what a ripoff to the EMPLOYEES who were working and saw FICA (SS) deducted from their checks and no earnings were reported to the Feds for their SS records. For every $$ deducted from anyone’s paycheck for SS, is an amount due from the employer for their share of that. Filing for CA UNEMPLOYMENT would also be triggered - “never heard of you”..

How do the employees get made whole? The different offices pulling this scam apparently never filed the required quarterly payroll reports with either State or Fed WITH names, SS #’s, earnings or you would think those agencies would have been on the ball for followup about names and SS #’s not matching.

Another FReeper and myself had long careers handling CA payrolls tho’ we’re NOT about to say HOW MANY years! LOL

I always thought how dumb it was for someone to let some illegal use their SS# to apply for a job. The deductions are made from their checks but the earnings - IF PROPER FILINGS ARE DONE BY AN HONEST EMPLOYER - are credited to the person whose SS # was “borrowed” not to the person using the #....

To: Thank You Rush

Oddly enough, my experiences with payroll were with various CA companies but when I retired, it was with a CPA firm in Orange County!!!

To: A_Niceguy_in_CA

Now you can understand the resistance to sending those illegals home ... they are a profit center for many businesses, NGOs and governments.

17 posted on 11/22/2025 2:51:11 PM PST by RetiredTexasVet (Trump has arrived and it is awesome to have a real President.)

There are freepers that still believe that riches in this country are worked for......what a laugh..

18 posted on 11/22/2025 3:20:07 PM PST by cherry

To: A_Niceguy_in_CA

The great thing about bringing in modern slaves like Joe Biden did is how many ways there are to rip off both the slaves and the government.

But as these unfortunate owners found out, ripping off the government can cost you something. Even in the slave labor capital of California.

19 posted on 11/22/2025 3:51:10 PM PST by Cincinnatus.45-70 (What do DemocRats enjoy more than a truckload of dead babies? Unloading them with a pitchfork!)

To: A_Niceguy_in_CA

HOORAY law enforcement. it’s bad that we’ll be paying for these criminals.

20 posted on 11/22/2025 4:10:32 PM PST by PGalt (Past Peak Civilization?)

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