The Tennessee Department of Labor has shut down Ceja Enterprises on Nolensville Road for evading workers’ compensation laws.
This is good news for any Spanish-speaking Nashvillian who might need help filing immigration documents, figuring out a tax form or getting legal representation. That’s because proprietor Carmen Ceja—who’s already been sued by former clients and investigated by both the U.S. Department of Justice and IRS—advertises herself as qualified to help immigrants with complex legal, financial and immigration work that she is not legally licensed to handle. The results can be disastrous for clients (see “Lost in Translation,” May 4, 2006).
Now the labor department says that Ceja failed to obtain workers’ compensation insurance for her employees for most of 2003, 2004 and the entire period between February 2005 and March 2007.
Besides having her business shuttered until she obtains coverage for her workers, Ceja will have to pay more than $13,000 in fines, according to the labor department’s complaint. The penalties are “final and not appealable.”
This is not Ceja’s first brush with state regulators. In February 2006, Ceja was fined for failing to pay $1,789 in “unemployment taxes, job skills fees and/or penalty and interest” to the state, according to a filing in Davidson County General Sessions Court.
Ceja could have easily avoided having both her business shut down and a fine levied against her in the workers’ compensation matter. According to the labor department’s filing, she was given ample notification and opportunity to get her employees covered but failed to respond to a certified letter sent by the state. When the department had a hearing to discuss the matter, Ceja failed to appear and did not file an appeal after the fact. When reached by phone at her office—which appeared to be open—Ceja declined to comment.
Ceja is no stranger to controversy.
She calls herself a notario, a term for which there is no English equivalent. In Central American countries, a notario is a sort of super lawyer empowered to issue judicial opinions, make binding financial judgments and perform legal marriages. But Ceja is not legally allowed to do any of those things. But non-English-speaking immigrants are led to believe otherwise.
In 2005, the IRS Criminal Investigation Unit raided Ceja Enterprises and removed boxes of files. Although IRS spokeswoman Jennifer Pollard won’t comment on the raid specifically, she does say that the CIU is responsible for investigating violations of Internal Revenue laws, including tax evasion and assisting in the preparation of false tax returns.
Last year, the U.S. Department of Justice sent Ceja a certified letter ordering that she immediately stop marketing her company as authorized to handle immigration work. But it was too late for Yolanda Aleman, an El Salvadoran immigrant who is in the U.S. as a legal resident. According to a lawsuit that Aleman filed against Ceja in the spring of 2006, Ceja botched a routine immigration filing and federal immigration authorities began deportation proceedings. The case has been settled, but the outcome is sealed.Meanwhile, though Ceja is out of business for now, the sign in front of her Nolensville Road office still claims that she helps “Los Hispanos” with “Income Tax, Real Estate, Business Accounting, Translations [and] Immigration.”
