Columbia restaurant owner accused of impersonating southeast Missouri county commissioner to alcohol regulators
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
The Columbia woman accused of paying someone to set a Mexican restaurant on fire and impersonating public officials allegedly pretended to be a southeast Missouri county commissioner to state alcohol regulators.
ABC 17 News obtained emails from the Missouri Division of Alcohol and Tobacco Control that are now at the center of a new criminal case against Crystal Umfress, who helped open Casa Maria's in south Columbia. The June 3 and 4 emails come from a "ron.dunklinco@gmail.com" and claim that Ron Huber is the one writing them. Huber is a Dunklin County commissioner and alcohol license holder for Kennett, Missouri, restaurant Puerto Jaivo. The emails ask the state to "withdraw my renewal application for the liquor license for Puerto Jaivo."
Huber denied writing those emails in a phone interview with ABC 17 News. He said state investigators called him in late June asking if he had in fact sent them.
"I said 'I have not sent you any emails,'" Huber told ABC 17 News about his conversation with state investigators. "And they said, 'Well, we were pretty sure that you hadn't, but we wanted to make sure to hear it from you that you hadn't."
The text of the emails ABC 17 News obtained match those quoted in the probable cause statement against Umfress as well as a July 10 email that prosecutors said she sent pretending to be someone else. She is in jail without bond on two counts of filing false business records and one count of forgery for those emails.
Umfress's attorney, Russell Oliver, did not respond to a request for comment on Thursday.
Huber is an accountant in southeast Missouri who works for several Mexican restaurants. He said he had briefly done business years ago with Lupita's in Kennett, the restaurant that Umfress is accused of paying someone to set on fire. Huber said he did not know and had never heard of Umfress until she was implicated in the fire at Lupita's.
"I just got grouped in with her, I guess her wrath," Huber said. "I couldn't tell you why she's doing what she's doing."
ABC 17 News previously reported that the state suspended Casa Maria's liquor license for 52 days when Umfress forged the name of a woman on the license's renewal application. State records show that Casa Maria's still does not have an active liquor license.
Huber's name also comes up in emailed testimony sent to the Missouri House Special Interim Committee on Illegal Immigrant Crimes. The emails from "Melissa White" and "Marissa Jenkins" claim Huber obtains liquor licenses for people in the country illegally to open and run restaurants. They claim Huber then takes a cut of the liquor sales for helping, which Huber denies.
"There's just no basis to any of the accusations," Huber said.
Umfress is next due in court on Oct. 15 for her arson case.
