Texas Man Gets 50 Years In Prison For Stealing $1.2 Million Dollars In Fajitas

Dent7 years ago

Residents of Cameron County, Texas no longer have to live in fear, as an infamous thief has been put behind bars. Gilberto Escamilla, a former employee at the local juvenile detention hall, is revving up the front end of a 50-year prison sentence after being convicted on charges related to theft.

What for, you may ask? Did he rob a bank? Worse than that. A whole network of banks? Worse than that. Damn, what’s worse than those things? How does one catch 50 years? Gilberto stole fajitas — all of the fajitas.

From Dallas Morning News:

A former South Texas juvenile justice department employee was sentenced Friday to 50 years in prison after pleading guilty to stealing $1.2 million worth of fajitas with county funds.

Gilberto Escamilla, 53, who worked at the Cameron County Juvenile Justice Department, was arrested in August after a driver from Labatt Food Service in Harlingen called the department’s kitchen and said he was delivering an 800-pound order of fajitas, according to the Brownsville Herald.

The kitchen employee told the driver that the juvenile department does not serve fajitas, but the driver told her that he had been delivering fajitas there for the past nine years.

Escamilla was fired from his job and arrested the next day. When officers searched his house, they found packages of the stolen food in his refrigerator.

Most of us limit workplace theft to swiping a coworker’s pizza from the fridge or stockpiling pens. Gilberto cranked that shit up a million notches. Say what you want, but going nine years stealing shit without anyone finding out is a pretty impressive run. Especially considering the quantity at which he was getting delivered each time. I mean, 800 pounds of fajitas. What was he doing with all of that product anyway?

Officials said he took $1,251,578 worth of fajita orders and delivered them to his own customers, the Herald reported

The guy was just trying to get his side hustle on. Maybe if the government paid a little better then he wouldn’t have had to resort to this step. Even so, Gilberto is taking the high road and showing remorse.

“It was selfish. It started small and got bigger and out of control,” Escamilla said while testifying in court. “It got to the point where I couldn’t control it anymore.”

I, for one, cannot wait until the first time the guys in the joint ask him what he’s in there for. “Fajitas,” he’ll say. “Fucking fajitas.”.

[via Dallas Morning News]

Image via Cameron County Sheriff’s Department