News

Chipotle invests in immigration probe legal team

June 19, 2011

Chipotle Mexican Grill has hired a team of attorneys to help the company navigate a federal investigation into its hiring practices.

According to a story from Reuters, Chipotle started to invest in its legal team in January with the hiring of Julie Myers Wood, the director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) under President George W. Bush and now an immigration consultant.

From the story:

The launch of a related federal criminal investigation in April prompted the company to turn to Washington litigators Robert Luskin (of law firm Patton Boggs) and Gregory Craig (from Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom) as co-counsel.

Luskin is a top Washington litigator specializing in white-collar crime. He helped Bush strategist Karl Rove avoid charges in the outing of Central Intelligence Agency operative Valerie Plame after her husband criticized the Iraq war.

Craig has represented Washington power brokers and was President Barack Obama's White House counsel in his first year in office. Most recently, disgraced politician John Edwards hired him to fight charges of using illegal campaign funds to cover up an extramarital affair.

The company has an estimated 26,000 employees and 1,100 restaurants. The company's troubles started in January when large number of its employees were let go from working in restaurants in Minnesota. The company had an estimated 1,200 employees working among 50 restaurants in the state. The firings led to employee protests and several arrests in Minneapolis.

In May, a story in The Wall Street Journal said the investigation had been extended to the chain's markets in Atlanta and Los Angeles in addition to the Washington, D.C./Virginia region.