A Modesto man accused of scamming dozens of people in San Bernardino County and the Central Valley out of hundreds of thousands of dollars in business deals to build food trucks and trailers has been charged with nearly two dozen felonies.
Fernando Ochoa Jauregui, 28, pleaded not guilty Thursday afternoon, April 18, in Stanislaus County Superior Court in Modesto on 28 felony counts of obtaining money, labor or property by false pretenses. The criminal complaint names 27 victims from the Central Valley who allegedly were defrauded out of nearly $1 million. Ochoa was ordered to return to court June 10.
Although some San Bernardino County residents allege they also were victimized by Ochoa, he has not yet been charged in connection with those cases. District Attorney Jason Anderson said Wednesday that his office has not received any cases on Ochoa from the San Bernardino Police Department or San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department.
Ochoa is alleged to have carried out his crimes with “planning, sophistication, or professionalism,” and the complaint includes a special allegation that Ochoa’s crimes constituted a “pattern of related felony conduct” involving the taking of$992,895.
Ochoa has been held on $500,000 bail since he was arrested Tuesday evening by investigators from the Stanislaus County District Attorney’s Office, said Chief Deputy District Attorney Wendell Emerson.
Ochoa, owner of Ceres-based 8A Food Truck Inc. and well-known throughout the Central Valley as “the taco truck guy,” allegedly took deposits and other payments but failed to deliver food trucks and trailers to dozens of people who had ordered them.
In February, Ochoa said in an email that in previous months his company experienced delays in being able to complete some projects on time, and customers started asking for refunds. He said he couldn’t provide refunds because his customers’ money had already been “poured into the projects,” but vowed that he was taking action to repay his dissatisfied customers.
At the time, Ochoa said he had recently moved to the San Bernardino area to do business, and it wasn’t long thereafter when more alleged victims surfaced.
A San Bernardino couple claim they gave Ochoa a $15,000 cash deposit to build them a food service trailer and a Victorville man alleges he gave Ochoa nearly $25,000 to convert a van into a food truck. All three claim they received nothing in return.
The San Bernardino couple, Alejandro Gonzalez and his wife, Paulina Quintal, said Ochoa had delivered to a food service trailer to their driveway, but took it back a couple of days later. They filed a report with the San Bernardino Police Department on Jan. 24.
The couple were elated when they heard the news of Ochoa’s arrest.
“It’s a good day today. I’m very happy,” Quintal said. Gonzalez added: “I’m glad they got this guy. It’s terrible for all these people who’ve been affected.”
Gonzalez and Quintal owned and operated Mi Casita Purepecha Mexican Grill in San Bernardino for eight years, but Gonzalez said their dealings with Ochoa and loss of revenue and savings caused them to fall on hard times. They were forced to close the restaurant and move to Moreno Valley, where Gonzalez said he is starting a food truck business.
“Everything shut down. Now I have to start all over again,” Gonzalez said. “My lease was up, so I decided to start in a different place now, a different city. I did a 360-degree turn.”
Ochoa, according to law enforcement officials and some of his customers, required deposits in exchange for starting work on food trucks. He then would require additional payments as work progressed in phases on each project.
However, Ochoa failed to deliver the trucks. And when the customers asked to see them, he would come up with reasons as to why they couldn’t.
One of Ochoa’s alleged victims from the Central Valley, Sebastian Delgado of Salinas, claims Ochoa took $90,000 from him and his wife, Norma Estevez, for the purchase and construction of two 16-foot food service trailers. The couple said they planned to use one truck to serve food to migrant workers at a friend’s ranch and another to serve food to patrons at a local bingo hall.
The couple said they kept getting the run-around from Ochoa, so they made a surprise visit to his shop in Ceres and asked to see the trailers, one of which Ochoa told them had been completed, according to Delgado, who said he and his wife never got their trailers.
Ochoa’s ex-wife, Alma Macias, said Ochoa emigrated from Colima, Mexico, to the U.S. on a tourist visa. The two married in 2018, and Ochoa started 8A Food Truck Inc. last year.
Macias, 24, said she wasn’t aware Ochoa had been arrested until she read about it Wednesday morning.
“I hope he pays for what he has done,” she said.
