Brothers had employee shot to death and took $3.5M from worker paychecks, feds say
Two brothers working for a tree-trimming company had an employee shot to death after he exposed that the pair mistreated co-workers and took $3.5 million from their paychecks in Georgia, federal prosecutors said.
The company’s supervisor, Pablo Rangel-Rubio, 53, of Rincon, arranged for his brother Juan Rangel-Rubio, 46, of Rincon, to fatally shoot Eliud Montoya “execution-style” in 2017, according to officials.
Montoya, a husband and father, “blew the whistle” on the brothers’ scheme — which involved hiring people living in the U.S. illegally and underpaying them — by reporting the pair to the federal government, prosecutors said.
The brothers were both Mexican citizens living illegally in the U.S. themselves, according to officials.
In the case’s latest development, Juan Rangel-Rubio was sentenced to life in prison on April 10 after prosecutors said he killed Montoya six years ago, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Georgia. He’s the final defendant to be sentenced in the case, prosecutors said.
His sentencing comes after a jury found him guilty on a number of charges in the case, the attorney’s office announced on Nov. 1, McClatchy News previously reported.
“Eliud Montoya was murdered for doing the right thing and revealing Juan Rangel-Rubio’s scheme to profit off his use of undocumented workers,” U.S. Attorney Jill E. Steinberg said in an April 10 news release.
McClatchy News contacted Juan Rangel-Rubio’s attorneys for comment on April 11 and didn’t immediately receive a response.
Pablo Rangel-Rubio, the former supervisor of Wolf Tree, was previously sentenced to 48 years and eight months in prison after pleading guilty to aiding and abetting the retaliation against a witness, prosecutors announced in a Nov. 17 news release.
More on the brothers’ illegal labor scheme
Juan Pablo-Rubio illegally worked for Pablo Rangel-Rubio at Wolf Tree, a contract tree-trimming service company, according to court documents.
As a company supervisor, Pablo Rangel-Rubio oversaw all of Wolf Tree’s employees in the Savannah region, including Montoya, court documents state. Although he had the authority to hire workers, Juan Pablo-Rubio helped him do so.
When the brothers hired people living in the U.S. illegally, Pablo Rangel-Rubio would give them new identities and the social security numbers of other individuals, according to a superseding indictment.
The pair schemed to direct these workers’ paychecks into their own bank accounts and kept a portion of the earnings for themselves, prosecutors said. Then, the workers were underpaid in cash, the indictment says.
Montoya reports the brothers to federal officials before his death
After Montoya witnessed his co-workers’ mistreatment, he reported the brothers to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which enforces workplace laws nationwide, on Aug. 17, 2017, the indictment states.
When Pablo Rangel-Rubio learned about this, he wanted “to prevent (Montoya) from providing testimony and producing records or documents in an official proceeding conducted by the EEOC,” according to the indictment.
As a result, he arranged for Montoya’s killing and monitored him with Juan Rangel-Rubio to learn his schedule and typical whereabouts, the indictment says.
Two days after Montoya complained to the EEOC, Juan Rangel-Rubio shot him to death with the help of Higinio Perez-Bravo, 52, of Savannah, who is accused of serving as Juan Rangel-Rubio’s getaway driver, prosecutors said.
After Montoya was found dead with gunshot wounds in his back, his mother, Avelina Alvares, told WJCL that her son “was the family’s rock.”
“He was the only supporter of the family. He sustained all of us. He supported all of us,” Alvares told the outlet in an interview in August 2017. “I didn’t work and I was able to stop working and so did his wife.”
Perez-Bravo was previously sentenced to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit murder for hire, prosecutors announced in the Nov. 17 news release. He was paid for his help in connection with the killing, McClatchy News previously reported.
Four other defendants, who weren’t identified by prosecutors, were previously sentenced to two years in prison in connection with Montoya’s killing, according to officials.
This story was originally published April 11, 2023 at 11:04 AM with the headline "Brothers had employee shot to death and took $3.5M from worker paychecks, feds say."
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