Undercover Police Sting Leaves Single Mother Facing Jail Time – For Selling A Plate Of Food


The last thing Mariza Reulas was expecting was to face jail time after joining a local Facebook group for sharing recipes and food in the Stockton, California area. But that’s exactly what happened after an undercover police sting busted her for “selling an illegal substance” – namely, a bowl of ceviche.

So is cilantro a controlled substance in Stockton? Is the Obama administration cracking down on possession of shrimp?

The truth is rather more banal. According to KTLA, Reulas – and a dozen other locals – are facing charges of operating a food facility and engaging in business without a permit.

Nobody thought this was what California meant when it promised to crack down on contraband. [Image by Camrocker/iStock]

“It was just, like, unreal that they were saying you could face up to a year in jail,” said Reulas, calling the investigation “a waste of time and resources.”

The members of the Facebook group 209 Food Spot seem an unlikely criminal cabal; according to Reulas, a group of Stockton and area locals – mostly women and significantly Latinx-leaning – who share recipes, organize potlucks, and occasionally sell or trade what they cook.

“Somebody would be like, ‘Oh I don’t have anything to trade you but I would love to buy a plate,’ like, they’d be off of work.”

That said, a Facebook search tells a bit of a different story. While the group is closed to non-members, the description indicates that it is explicitly a buy-and-sell group intended for people selling and delivering home-cooking. According to San Joaquin County Deputy District Attorney Kelly McDaniel, they issued a warning to the group prior to the arrests. Reulas says that the warning was never posted.

Perhaps not quite the innocent “recipe sharing” group Reulas paints it as. [Image by Facebook/209 Food Spot]

In any case, when the group persisted, San Joaquin County investigators went ahead with their plan on December 3 of last year; posing as group members, they reached out to other members, including Reulas, to buy food. In her case, a bowl of ceviche. Reulas, and the other members charged, were offered a plea bargain – in her case, three years of probation. Other group members accepted the plea, but Reulas did not. She now faces a trial – and up to a year in jail if she is found guilty.

According to Reulas, her plea bargain carried harsher penalties than those offered to other members – a longer term, as well as 80 hours of community service and a $235 fine, as per the New York Daily News. The reasoning behind those alleged harsher penalties is currently unknown.

“It was just like unreal that they were saying you could face up to a year in jail.”

“It was just some cooking me and my daughters would do for fun on a weekend we didn’t have anything to do.”

Meanwhile, Deputy DA McDaniel defended her office’s actions as a simple matter of food safety. “I don’t write the laws, I enforce them. And the legislature has felt that this is a crime,” she said, adding that “food prepared in a facility that does not inspect it creates a risk to the public.”

McDaniel said that selling any food not subject to health inspections puts the public in danger, as well as undercutting legitimate restaurant owners.

But Reulas, a single mother of at least three (the Inquisitr was unable to confirm her total number of children, but she does have at least two daughters and a son,) said that she just enjoyed cooking.

“Never tried to be in business. Never tried making an extreme amount of money. I just enjoy cooking. Not something I want to do daily lol or even weekly.”

Her biggest concern now is for her children – particularly her 6-year-old son, Justice.

“The night before [a court appearance] he always asks, like, ‘are you going to come back?'”

[Featured Image by Mario Tama/Getty Images]

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