The owners of a pair of taco restaurants in Northern California were ordered to pay $140,000 in back pay and damages to 35 employees for bringing in a purported priest to extract confessions of workplace misconduct.

Eduardo Hernandez, Hector Galindo and Alejandro Rodriguez also failed to pay overtime for time worked past a 40-hour workweek, illegally paid managers using the pool of tips given to employees, and implied that those who cooperated with federal investigators would face immigration issues, the Department of Labor announced last week.

The clerical caper was spurred by a Department of Labor investigation into overtime and record-keeping violations at the Taqueria Garibaldi locations in Sacramento and Roseville, California.

In November 2021, a few weeks after federal officials told the restaurateurs they had evidence of the violations, Mr. Hernandez brought in a man he said was a Catholic priest to the Sacramento location during the afternoon shift.

Mr. Hernandez told workers the priest had been brought in to help with employee mental health.

“I decided to talk to the priest, but as soon as the confession started I found the conversation to be strange … The priest asked if I had stolen anything at work, if I was late to my employment, if I did anything to harm my employer, and if I had any bad intentions toward my employer,” Maria Parra, then a Taqueria Garibaldi employee, told the Sacramento Bee.

Ms. Parra would be fired three months later in retaliation for cooperating with the Department of Labor investigation.

The “priest” was not publicly identified by the Department of Labor, but ecclesiastical authorities say he was not associated with the local Diocese of Sacramento.

Under Catholic doctrine, any confession to a priest is bound by the sacramental seal of secrecy and thus could not be told to the restaurant owners, or anyone else.

In addition, while it is not absolutely forbidden, priests are strongly discouraged from directly asking whether a penitent has committed this or that particular sin.

“Our own investigation found no evidence of any connection between the Diocese of Sacramento and the alleged priest in this matter,” Diocese of Sacramento spokesman Bryan Visitacion said.

“While we don’t know who the person in question was, we are completely confident he was not a priest of the Diocese of Sacramento,” Mr. Visitacion told the Catholic News Agency.

Judge William Shubb of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California ordered the owners to pay $70,000 in back pay, $70,000 in damages and a $5,000 civil penalty for willful violations of federal labor laws.

• Brad Matthews can be reached at bmatthews@washingtontimes.com.