Woman facing arson-for-hire charge in Bootheel now faces forgery relating to immigrant committee testimony

A Columbia woman charged with using multiple aliases to accuse restaurant competitors of criminal activity also used fake names for testimony to a Missouri House committee alleging a conspiracy to obtain liquor licenses for undocumented immigrants

Crystal Umfress of Columbia, owner of Casa Maria’s Mexican Cantina, was already facing trial in a Dunklin County arson-for-hire scheme when she was charged Sept. 18 with five new felonies. The new charges, of forgery and filing a false document, also originate in Dunklin County.

The prosecution alleges she impersonated multiple public officials and others to claim that Mexican-born restaurant owners were bribing local public officials to cover up their immigration status and obtain liquor licenses.

“I can’t speculate on what it is that set the lady off,” said Ron Huber, an associate commissioner of Dunklin County who was a target of the accusations cited in the forgery case. “I’ve never met her before in my life. I don’t know who she is or why she’s out to try to discredit me or anything.”

Huber is also named several times in testimony submitted to the Missouri House Special Interim Committee on Illegal Immigrant Crimes. The committee was established in July to study whether undocumented immigrants are a source of crime and held public meetings in Springfield, Joplin, Kansas City, St. Joseph, St. Louis and Cape Girardeau.

The written testimony tied to Umfress was submitted to the committee using multiple names and email addresses. The emails allege Huber is at the center of a widespread conspiracy to obtain liquor licenses for Mexican restaurants that in turn serve as fronts for drug dealing and other crimes.

The conspiracy allegedly extends to Columbia, Warrenton, Springfield and other cities. The email testimony claims that undocumented immigrants who cannot legally obtain a liquor license are hiring people to front for their license applications, with officials turning a blind eye.

The submissions also often include a list of links to news stories involving people with Hispanic names, sometimes as victims of a crime, others as the alleged perpetrator of an offense such as drunk driving.

Huber said he’s heard Umfress has submitted testimony to the committee with false names.

“I’d like to know where that money went if I am supposed to have gotten it,” he said of the bribery allegation.

The state Highway Patrol, which investigated the forgery case, cannot comment on its work or confirm any connection between Umfress and the accounts that contacted the legislative committee, Sgt. Brad Germann said. The Dunklin County prosecuting attorney could not be reached for comment.

Russell Oliver, Umfress’ attorney, also declined to comment.

Starting in May, The Independent received a series of emails with similar accusations and many of the same links. Three of the email names and addresses for the witness statements are the same as those received by The Independent.

Huber said he recognized several of the names used in the emails as among those that had worked to spread conspiracy theories about him.

One email to The Independent, using the name Marissa Jenkins, identified the sender as a student reporter seeking help, with the signature line “Investigate Report University of Missouri Journalism”.

A student named Marissa Jenkins was enrolled on a part-time basis during the summer term at MU, university spokesman Christopher Ave stated in an email. She is not currently enrolled.

The legislative testimony emails signed “Marissa Jenkins” do not identify her as a student or as a reporter.

The committee chairman, Republican state Rep. Lane Roberts of Joplin, said he was not aware that any of the testimony submitted by email was from aliases.

“I do know that we received a number — two, three or maybe four emails — with regard to something in Dunklin County,” Roberts said.

The committee was not set up to investigate specific charges of criminal activity, Roberts said.

“Our focus is in trying to quantify what kind of crime and how much crime is associated with undocumented workers,” Roberts said. “It’s been very difficult to come up with any kind of way to quantify that.”

Roberts, a former Joplin police chief and former director of the Department of Public Safety, said his response to specific allegations made in testimony is to ask the person reporting the criminal activity to contact law enforcement.

“When somebody alleges some kind of an activity, there’s always a healthy degree of skepticism, because often it’s personal, it’s emotional and we have to be very careful about taking it at face value,” Roberts said.

Umfress first made news headlines last year when she was charged with paying $1,485 to someone to set fire to Lupita’s Mexican Restaurant in Kennett. She is set to go to trial in February in Butler County, where the case was moved on a change of venue.

Testimony submitted to the legislative committee under the name Maria Garcia in advance of its July 30 hearing blamed the owner of the building and Huber for the fire.

The owner, the testimony states, paid the intermediary who found the person willing to set the fire “$10,000 to start a kitchen fire to Lupitas Mexican and implement (sic) an American owner of a Mexican restaurant in Columbia, Missouri as she was trying to rat the commissioner out for a twenty-year operation aiding illegal immigrants with IDs, liquor licenses, and drugs.”

Umfress has had numerous legal and personal issues coming at her at a rapid rate for more than a year.

On July 1, 2023, she obtained a marriage license to wed her partner at Casa Maria’s, Jesus Celestino Mendoza-Chavez, nine days before the fire hit the Kennett restaurant, which was owned by Mendoza’s brother, KOMU-TV in Columbia reported.

She was charged in the arson Sept. 22, 2023. Mendoza-Chavez died Oct. 1, 2023, after sustaining severe injuries in a Sept. 26, 2023, head-on collision in Columbia. She cited the death of her husband in an unsuccessful bid to have her $65,000 bond reduced.

On May 9, the state Division of Alcohol and Tobacco Control suspended the liquor license at Casa Maria’s for 52 days after finding a forgery on the application for renewal, KMIZ TV in Columbia reported. Umfress is ineligible for a liquor license in her own name because she has a felony theft conviction on her record.

The Independent on May 16 received the first email, from someone who called themselves Melissa White, making allegations involving Huber and the liquor license conspiracy.

The committee received submissions from “Melissa White”, using the same email address, in advance of two hearings. In the first, for the July 11 hearing, she brought a Columbia competitor into her conspiracy allegations. The second, for the July 30 hearing, said her fiance had been assaulted while at a Columbia restaurant and died the next day.

Umfress’ emails began causing Huber problems about six months ago, he said. He was contacted by the state alcohol regulators about emails purporting to withdraw license applications, Huber said, and more recently from accounting clients.

He asked the prosecutor to be aggressive, Huber said.

“I kind of put some pressure on the prosecutor,” He said. “I said, ‘Before you know, nobody really knew what she was doing or whatever, but I’ve started to get phone calls from my clients and I’ll start losing clients.’ That’s going to be a big deal.”