Boss Allegedly Ordered Killing of Worker Who Complained

Eliud Montoya's murder came after warning: prosecutors
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 19, 2018 12:12 PM CST
Scheme Exposed, Brothers Allegedly Settled on Murder
Eliud Montoya was shot three times.   (Getty Images/Jnovack7)

When Eliud Montoya's mother arrived at the scene of the tree-service worker's murder, "without hesitation, she advised his boss killed him," according to an affidavit. Prosecutors say she's essentially right. "They are always watching me because of a complaint I [filed] on ways they let the Foreman treat [his] employees," reads the last journal entry of the 41-year-old naturalized US citizen found facedown in a road next to the mobile home park where he lived in Garden City, Ga., on Aug. 19, 2017, per the Washington Post. Two days earlier, Montoya had filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against his boss, Pablo Rangel-Rubio of Wolf Tree, accusing his company of stealing wages from undocumented workers. For his trouble, Montoya received a gunshot wound to the head and two to the back on Rangel-Rubio's orders, prosecutors say.

Rangel-Rubio, 49, allegedly paid more than $20,000 to enlist his brother, Juan Rangel-Rubio, and another man to kill Montoya in an "execution-style slaying" in retaliation for the complaint, which included notarized statements from three workers. Coming months after a separate grievance Montoya filed with the company, the complaint later revealed the brothers siphoned $3.5 million from undocumented workers over 10 years, prosecutors say. All three suspects, described as undocumented immigrants, were charged Thursday, per Fox News. "Our office is committed to ensuring justice for Eliud Montoya, a man killed for doing the right thing," says a US attorney. Montoya's mother wasn't the only one to have suspicions in that regard. Per an affidavit, a whistleblower recruited by Montoya warned him that Rangel-Rubio "was going to have him killed." (This man says a teen hired him to kill her.)

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