3 North Carolina State Fair ride workers charged with stealing tickets
RALEIGH (WTVD) -- A year after the disastrous ride malfunction at the North Carolina State Fair, officials have gone out of their way to assure fairgoers it is a safe place.
While there have been no ride mishaps, three fair ride operators -- 20-year-old Jorge Perez-Martinez, 26-year-old Irineo Garcia Rosas, and 28-year-old Angel Aguilar Linos -- have been arrested for selling tickets on the side and are suspected of being in the country illegally.
At the same time the first ride operator -- Perez-Martinez -- was being charged earlier this week, a viewer tipped ABC11 off to something she found very unusual.
It takes hundreds of workers to run the State Fair, and officials with the fair say it isn't always easy to hire enough workers. That's why one of the ride contractors had posted an ad on Craigslist asking for minimum wage workers.
The main contractors say workers hired on Craigslist won't likely be running rides, and like all employees at the fair, they will get checked for criminal background and citizenship.
The three ride operators arrested this week don't appear to have a criminal record in North Carolina, but court documents show they are suspected of being in the country illegally.
That concerned one viewer enough to contact ABC11 about the Craigslist ad, the arrests, and her concern about the safety at the fair.
"To now have it tainted last year by this incident. And now this upcoming year trying to make it better and safer and put faith back in it that if you attend the fair you're still going to be safe. And now that undermined by not only the arrests but also how they're staffing," said fairgoer Stacy Infantino.
State Fair officials say they expect their contractor and subcontractors do criminal and citizenship checks as required by their contracts.
A spokesman for the main midway contractor says he is disappointed in the arrests but calls it an isolated incident that doesn't affect safety.
