An­na-Lisa Paul

A Venezue­lan chef who claimed to have cooked for the Prime Min­is­ter was yes­ter­day rep­ri­mand­ed and dis­charged when he ap­peared in court charged for work­ing with­out a valid work per­mit. Car­los Alex­is Mejia Montes, 31, cried as he stood be­fore Mag­is­trate Mar­cia Mur­ray in the Port-of-Spain First Mag­is­trates' Court.

Montes and Je­sus Daniel Mendez, 37, al­so of Venezuela, were ar­rest­ed at Trad­er Jack's Restau­rant, Movi­eTowne, In­vaders' Bay. Both men plead­ed guilty yes­ter­day. The court heard that around 5.15 pm on April 24, im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cials vis­it­ed the restau­rant af­ter re­ceiv­ing in­for­ma­tion and ar­rest­ed both men af­ter they failed to pro­duce valid work per­mits.

At­tor­ney Aman­da La Caille, who rep­re­sent­ed Montes, said her client pos­sessed a valid work per­mit which had been is­sued in the name of Bel­la Italia Restau­rant, Trinci­ty Mall, and had been help­ing train grad­u­ates of the MUST pro­gramme. La Caille said Montes' work per­mit was valid for two years and will ex­pire lat­er this year.

Ac­cept­ing the ex­pla­na­tion of­fered to the court, Mur­ray lat­er rep­ri­mand­ed and dis­charged Montes af­ter learn­ing he had worked un­der the mis­ap­pre­hen­sion that his work per­mit al­lowed him to be em­ployed at oth­er es­tab­lish­ments oth­er than the one in whose name the per­mit was is­sued.

Mendez, who was rep­re­sent­ed by at­tor­ney Vince Charles, was fined $700, to be paid forth­with, or he will have to serve four weeks' hard labour. Mur­ray al­so re­ject­ed a copy of the work per­mit ap­pli­ca­tion sub­mit­ted by Mendez's em­ploy­er. Richard Chootoo of the Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion laid the charge.