Restaurateur Sentenced in Drug, Tax Case

A Santa Ana restaurateur was sentenced Thursday to five years and three months in federal prison and placed on five years probation for possession of heroin with the intent to distribute, and for filing a false tax return.

U.S. District Judge John G. Davies in Los Angeles also fined Diego Villanueva Torres $12,500 and ordered him to pay an unspecified amount of back taxes. Torres had earlier pleaded guilty to the felony charges.

According to Assistant U.S. Atty. Mark A. Byrne, Torres was a cook at a Marie Callender’s Restaurant when he purchased two Santa Ana restaurants for more than $1 million in 1986 and 1988.

“He was a cook at a restaurant and he bought two restaurants,” Byrne said. “He had to have gotten his money from somewhere other than cooking.”

From 1986 to 1990, Byrne said, Torres under-reported the income from El Gato Negro, a bar, and claimed a loss for the Las Rocas Restaurant, both in Santa Ana.

In 1988 alone, he understated his income by $186,000, according to the Internal Revenue Service.

The investigation of Torres led authorities to his drug activities, according to Byrne.

“The evidence established that drug dealers frequented (Torres’ businesses) all the time and used both places to sell heroin and cocaine,” he said.

Torres was arrested at Las Rocas Restaurant last October when he attempted to sell 490 grams of heroin to an undercover Santa Ana police detective, authorities said.