REDWOOD CITY — Two officers at a Pescadero cannabis farm are accused of failing to pay more than $200,000 in wages to their employees, according to prosecutors.
Aaron Esquer Corrales of Rohnert Park and Roberto Ahmed Perez-Flores of Daly City, both 41, are charged with 16 felony counts of wage theft, San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe said.
The men served as officers at Miles Ahead Ventures, Esquer Corrales as the chief executive and financial officer and Perez-Flores as the secretary, according to prosecutors. The company leased a farm in the city of Pescadero to cultivate cannabis.
Esquer Corrales and Perez-Flores allegedly failed to pay 30 employees wages for work completed between May 1, 2024, and Jan. 24. The wages owed individually to the victims ranged from $350 to $28,600.
Prosecutors said the men also failed to secure a workers’ compensation insurance policy.
Through Miles Ahead Ventures, the men allegedly housed workers in tents inside a rat-infested greenhouse with little more than a portable toilet and a small cooking stove.
“The failure to pay wages to poor farmworkers while housing them in deplorable conditions is both offensive and illegal,” Wagstaffe said. “Our goal is to hold these two defendants accountable and make them pay restitution for the money they stole from these vulnerable victims.”
Perez-Flores appeared in court Wednesday afternoon and pleaded not guilty to the charges, according to Wagstaffe. The Private Defender Program was appointed to represent him.
Prosecutors said Esquer Corrales is in custody in Marin County and awaiting transportation to San Mateo County.
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