When I was a junior in high school there was a restaurant called Xtreme Sushi in Bountiful Utah. I was attending Bountiful High school and was in need of a job, so one day I wandered into Xtreme Sushi and applied.   The person who took my application and interviewed me was a man named Andy Esquivel.

Andy gave me the application and I basically got the job on the spot – quick and simple.  After a couple days Andy started ranting to me about “Xtagged”.   He said it was a website worth millions and billions of dollars and that it would make us all rich.  This was around the same time that Twitter was invented and it’s funny because he would always say that twitter was nothing compared to Xtagged and if they could get so popular and be worth so much money then that means Xtagged is going to be worth way more!

I went on working for Andy at Xtreme Sushi for  $6.50 an hour as the time passed and passed without me getting a pay check.  I think it was two months before I got my first check , and I do not recall the amount of money I was finally paid.  That first amount doesn’t really matter though because after that first two months, I never did see another dollar – nothing in the next four months that I worked for him.  Paychecks were not what I would call a ‘usually thing’ at all while working for Andy – in fact they did not really exist.  I went on for so long with out receiving money because every day without fail Andy would talk to me about Xtagged and he would say that he was giving me 1,000 shares of stock in the company. He promised that when the site took off, I would be able to sell my stock for “millions of dollars”. This didn’t get rid of my desire and right to be paid for my labor, but I trusted Andy because everything he said seemed to be in my favor.  He always seemed to care about my well being (or so I thought). I trusted in Andy because he was such a goodliar.

I feel stupid for believing Andy for 6 months with out receiving almost anything.  I was a kid in high school so I was very gullible.  Andy saw that gullibility in me and he decided to take advantage of it.

Though I did not ever complain for about not being paid, I made sure to keep track of every hour that I worked in hopes of being paid for my labor someday.  After all, that is what Andy told me to do because he always promised that soon I would receive my check.

One day I went to work and when I showed up at the restaurant I realized that the doors were locked and it was dark inside.  A lot of thing things were missing from in the restaurant. I am not sure who removed everything, but I’m certain it was Andy. It looked like he just ran away, which I finally learned is exactly what happened.  In the end he just packed up and ran away without paying me another dime and with out even saying a word.

I’ve calculated that Andy owes me 89.9 hours worth of labor at $6.50 and hour, which totals up to $584.35.  John Steer would be able to confirm this, because he was there while I worked all those hours.  I don’t ever expect to get paid and I’ve learned my lesson about who to trust and who to avoid.  Andy is definitely a person to avoid at all costs.  I hope he finally gets what’s coming to him in this trial.

Dakota Iverson