The Legacy workers won their case against their former employer early on, but they now find themselves entangled in a web of allegations of hundreds of thousands of dollars of stolen equipment.
When the workers first went inside the closed factory they say they noticed three production lines were gone. They made a list of more than 100 items plus finished product they say is missing — including tables, chairs, welders and computers — and filed it with the local labor mediation council, which helps workers and employers negotiate labor disputes. The Arizona Daily Star reviewed hundreds of documents from the labor dispute provided by the workers.
A former employee later said he saw some of the items inside a competitor business started by Legacy de México founder Gonzalo Mimiaga, who had left the company in 2012. Mimiaga said the equipment they found in his factory, GMA Xpert Printer Products, was sold to him by Rodolfo Moreno, who was Legacy's plant manager when it closed.
Mimiaga had nonspecific receipts from Moreno’s personal company, PalletsUSMEX, registered in Nogales, Arizona, totaling $29,000. Mimiaga said his understanding is that what he bought had been either sold or given to Moreno as part of his severance pay. “Rodolfo showed me some receipts that indicated that it belonged to him," he told the Star.
Mimiaga also showed six customs documents to the local mediation council, but it's hard to tell what — if anything — they prove. One matches some of the items reported by the Legacy workers as being used at GMA Xpert Printer Products. He legalized that equipment with Mexican customs on Feb. 6, 2014 — eight days after a representative of the mediation council visited his factory with a former Legacy employee to confirm that the equipment was there.
Moreno said he sold a batch of equipment and materials Legacy's CEO had taken out of the factory the weekend before the company closed but couldn't get to the U.S. because he didn't pay transportation and customs costs. Moreno paid those charges to get the equipment back, he said, then he sold it to Mimiaga.
He couldn't say if the equipment in the employees' list is what he sold to Mimiaga, he said, because the material and equipment is too generic and lacks serial and model numbers. The workers say much of the machinery they used was made in-house.
Moreno offered the workers $14,000, what was left after he paid the customs and transportation costs, but he said they refused.
Moreno and another Legacy top manager resigned their posts before a notary public 10 days after the company closed because they didn't want any trouble, he said.
The workers sued Moreno and Mimiaga, but their suit was dismissed. The mediation council cited insufficient proof that the equipment found inside GMA XPert Printer Products belonged to Legacy — and therefore to the workers.
