Updated Feb. 27, 2026, 9:15 p.m. CTA manager involved with hiring kitchen staff for Zipps Sports Grill is scheduled to plead guilty to a felony offense in connection to a federal probe into fraudulent hiring practices at the popular Valley restaurants, according to court documents.Diego Armando Gonzalez-Rosales, 36, will admit that in October 2024 he helped an undocumented immigrant get a job by texting him photographs of an Arizona driver's license and a Social Security card that belonged to someone else, according to plea agreement filed in U.S. District Court of Arizona in Phoenix on Feb. 26.Gonzalez-Rosales is scheduled to plea guilty on March 10 to a felony offense of unlawful transfer, possession or use of a means of identification. The class C felony carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, according to court documents.As part of the plea agreement, however, Gonzalez-Rosales' sentence will not be greater than time served or five months imprisonment, according to court records.Gonzalez-Rosales, an undocumented immigrant, also faces possible deportation, according to the plea agreement.Gonzalez-Rosales is among several Zipps employees to enter a guilty plea since scores of federal agents on Jan. 26 raided 14 Zipps locations throughout the Valley. The raids prompted angry demonstrations at several locations, including some where protesters said they were pepper-sprayed by agents.The tense confrontations between protesters and Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigation agents briefly paralleled the standoffs in Minneapolis.During a bond hearing on Feb. 3, a defense lawyer told a U.S. magistrate judge that Gonzalez-Rosales was being scapegoated by Zipps Sports Grill management.Zipps Sports Grill management knew the restaurant regularly hired undocumented workers, but they haven't faced the same consequences as Gonzalez-Rosales, said Rachel Gendreau, an assistant federal public defender.“He is being made a scapegoat by the company that employed him,” Gendreau said in court. “They were aware of the conduct and engaging in it themselves.”Company spokesperson David Leibowitz declined to comment on the scapegoat allegations by Gendreau.According to a criminal complaint, Gonzalez-Rosales told federal agents after his arrest that "every manager knows that many IDs that are used are fake.""He said, as an example, you can see a guy named William with a Mexican face."According to the criminal complaint, Gonzales-Rosales also said "that managers know they can get through the E Verify inspection with fake identity documents, and they do not care. He said the IDs have American names with Mexican workers using them, and that the fake IDs are poorly made, like a playing card. Gonzales-Rosales stated that the store managers know the IDs are fake, and they attest to the (I-9s)."Gonzalez-Rosales was one of 39 workers taken into custody Jan. 26 after federal immigration enforcement agents conducted immigration enforcement operations at 14 Zipps Sports Grill locations throughout the Phoenix area and the restaurant's headquarters in Scottsdale.Two other Zipps employees have pleaded guilty to a single felony charge each of unlawful use and possession of immigration identity documents, according to court records.Ludwin Benjamin Perez Velasco pleaded guilty on Feb. 12. Salvador Villanueva-Rosas pleaded guilty on Feb. 26.Perez Velasco is scheduled to be sentenced in late March. Villanueva-Rosas is scheduled to be sentenced in mid-April. Each, under the plea agreement, would be released from criminal custody at that hearing.The fourth Zipps employee to face criminal charges, Edwin Flores Rosales, has been indicted on a single felony charge of improper use of identity documents. His next court date has not been set.The operation followed a yearlong investigation that was launched after federal agents received a tip in February 2025 alleging that Zipps Sports Grill restaurants regularly employed undocumented workers to staff their kitchens.The tip asserted that management was aware employees were using fraudulent documents to gain employment, according to criminal complaints filed against some of the undocumented workers, including Gonzalez-Rosales.An analysis of I-9 records turned over by Zipps management to federal authorities revealed "multiple instances in which the name, Social Security number, and date of birth on Form I-9 were being misused to gain employment," according to the criminal complaints.Federal investigators identified 79 Zipps workers employed in the second quarter of 2025 who had between three and 46 active employers after running Social Security numbers from the I-9 forms though Arizona Department of Economic Security databases, according to criminal complaints.The federal immigration enforcement operation temporarily shut down all 14 Zipps locations, all of which have since reopened, Leibowitz said.Arizona Republic reporter Richard Ruelas contributed to this article.