Innocent Without Justice
Crystal Umfress, an innocent woman, was a victim of multiple injustices: personal, economic, and judicial.
Credit: Oliver Law Firm Facebook Post, Wednesday, February 4, 2026.
Crystal Umfress won her freedom, beating back a corrupt criminal justice system and so much more. A jury found her not guilty of arson. After years of threats and a campaign to destroy her business, she got her day in court, and they found her not guilty and released her from jail on the conspiracy charges to commit arson.
Yet, she’s still not free.
Dunklin County’s Prosecuting Attorney, Nicholas Jain, has slapped her with another charge—falsifying an email.
If Jain’s email case is valid, digital forensics would prove it in fifteen minutes. Email headers, IP addresses, and server logs can’t be spoofed. One records request, and you have your evidence—either she sent it or she didn’t. Yet, Crystal remains under a court-ordered gag order, silenced even after her acquittal, while Jain keeps her twisted up in the system because she dared to be a whistleblower.
Economic Injustice
Crystal had to spend over $30,000 on a private investigator. Years of legal fees. Her husband passed away. Her reputation was shredded in the local media and on social media thanks to Jain’s accusations.
She spent one week in jail before she could post bond. And then four more months (Commission Huber pressured Jain to stop her investigating the charges brought against her) from September to December 2024. They locked her up on charges that Jain knew were false using impeached witnesses. The bond? $65,000 cash for second-degree arson in a fire that caused almost no damage.
$65,000 cash bond for a woman with no prior record, who was 300 miles away when the fire started, who had no motive, while the actual arsonist—Kerry Raymond, caught on camera—got charged separately. Jain set the bond so high that Crystal couldn’t make it for months.
When she finally got out in late December 2024, they slapped an ankle monitor on her. She had to wear it until May 2025—seven months of electronic surveillance for a crime she didn’t commit.
While she was locked up, Casa Maria got evicted for unpaid rent. The restaurant she built with her husband—gone. Her business was destroyed while she sat in jail for a fire she had nothing to do with.
The jury acquitted her. Jain lost.
What did it cost Jain to prosecute an innocent woman? Nothing. The taxpayers paid for his campaign against her. What did it cost Juan Toscano when his DMV clerk got caught running fake IDs? Nothing—Jain never filed charges. What did it cost Misty Glass to sell fraudulent IDs to Toscano? A deal to testify against Crystal, then charges were dropped.
In Kennett, accusations have no burden of proof and no cost when disproved in court. Prosecutors can throw charges at whistleblowers knowing that even if they lose, even if the jury says “this is bullshit,” there’s no consequence. The prosecution is the punishment, even if they can’t achieve a guilty verdict. Jain ran a lawfare campaign that would have made Letitia James proud.
While Crystal won in court, she’s buried in legal bills and still facing another likely bogus charge. The people who framed her walk free with county paychecks and government pensions. Crystal was building a business that employed people. Jain stole all that from his community to keep his parasitic network in place.
Is jail time preferable to Lying?
Kerry Raymond—the man caught on camera lighting the fire at Lupita’s—was charged with second-degree arson. This was the same charge as Crystal and the same $65,000 bond.
He could have been sitting in Dunklin County Jail since September 2023. His bond was reduced to 10% and he was represented by Judge Mayer’s son, Dustin Mayer. He’s been out on bond this entire time with a warrant and testified with a warrant.
And he won’t say Crystal hired him or point the finger at who else might have hired him.
If Jain’s story was true, Raymond could’ve cut a deal years ago. Simply testify against Crystal, and get a reduced sentence, walk free like his girlfriend. Instead, he’s facing up to 7 years in prison for a Class D felony, and he’s being represented by Stoddard county Republican princelings.
Yet, he won’t implicate her. There’s no evidence tying Crystal to Raymond. They claimed she sent money through Cash App—that would be easy to prove or disprove with bank records. But the only person willing to testify against Crystal was Misty Glass, the DMV clerk with her own fraudulent license charges to dodge.
The actual arsonist won’t back up Jain’s story. He has the right lawyer. He won’t even back up his girlfriend’s story. In court, Glass’s daughter testified that Glass and Raymond thought they could extort Crystal because they heard she was a millionaire. Glass stuck with the story. Raymond must have woken up.
History of Death Threats and Suspicious Deaths
Crystal had spray-painted threats in her driveway. Someone placed a towel in her gas tank—that’s not subtle, that’s “we’ll burn you out.” Dumpsters at Casa Maria’s caught fire. She received threatening calls from Kennett and Mexico. Fake reviews trashed her business from accounts that popped up just to destroy her.
Her husband, Jesus Mendoza-Chavez, died in a car crash on Stadium Boulevard in Columbia, the same day Jain charged her with arson—September 26, 2023. Witnesses say someone tampered with drinks at Delia’s Mexican Restaurant that night. Jesus and others “could barely walk,” leaving Delia’s before the crash.
Taly Ruiz, the cook at Casa Maria’s, died December 5, 2023, after a Delia’s Christmas party where the owner’s son beat him with a gun. He went home. They found him dead the next day.
A server named Kaleigh came forward, saying she believed both men’s drinks were tampered with at Delia’s. In April 2024, ATC raided Delia’s and collected video footage. No charges were ever filed. I would like to think they found no evidence. Instead, I suspect that this network was too important to dismantle, which is why Trump really hasn’t gone after Missouri yet.
Two men who owned and ran Casa Maria’s were dead within three months of each other after visiting Delia’s—the restaurant owned by David Lopez, who runs his liquor license fraud through his girlfriend as a proxy. The same restaurant is connected to Las Margaritas and the Huber-Sanchez network. (Commissioner Huber of Dunklin County)
Tamara Breece bought Casa Maria’s in May 2024. The threats didn’t stop. Lisa Imhoff started posting about Kennett corruption on Facebook—her house caught fire.
The Injustice System of Kennett
October 26, 2025, four days before Jain sent me his first legally threatening email, Plutarco Vargas-Alvarez got drunk. His blood alcohol was 0.235%, three times the legal limit, and he plowed into multiple vehicles in Kennett. Five people were injured. One was a kid.
Vargas ran. He left them bleeding and ran.
When police caught him, he reeked of booze, slurring his words, and couldn’t stand straight. They didn’t do field sobriety tests because of a “language barrier”—never mind that Juan Toscano’s the official court translator in Kennett and could’ve been there in ten minutes.
This wasn’t his first time:
October 2024: DWI conviction
September 2025: Arrested under a different name
Vargas-Alvarez now faces 10 felonies: five counts of DWI causing serious injury, five counts of fleeing the scene. Jain filed a bond recommendation. Let me be clear—Jain acknowledged Vargas-Alvarez “has been arrested for driving while intoxicated multiple times,” that he “injured five people,” that he has “an outstanding warrant for immigration removal,” that he’s “a clear flight risk.”
Then recommended a bond anyway.
You know where Vargas works? Puerto Jaivo. The restaurant where Commissioner Ron Huber held the liquor license until August 2025, when public exposure forced him to transfer it to a proxy.
Illegal Immigrants are a protected class in Dunklin County. American citizens, Dunklin Residents, or visitors pay the cost. Sometimes, like Eric Mayberry, with their life.
Alan Gomez killed Eric Mayberry in September. Juan Toscano bailed him out within 24 hours. Terry McVey—the city attorney who’s supposed to prosecute criminals—represented him.
Juan Romero Vargas, a different man from Plutarco Vargas-Alvarez, had a DWI case in Kennett. Terry McVey prosecuted him. Jeff McCormick (former Dunklin County prosecutor) represented him. His sentence was Suspended Imposition of Sentence (SIS), two years probation, with only $32.50 in court costs. Thirty-two dollars and fifty cents for drunk driving without a license in a county with a rash of illegal immigrants driving drunk.
Jose Tenorio, Las Margaritas manager. His DWI was processed in “record time” according to sources. His fine was $450. Missouri State Highway Patrol caught him telling investigators he didn’t need a lawyer. He needed to “call Juan Toscano” because he “paid Juan Toscano to make it go away by paying off Terry McVey.”
The real court costs in Dunklin County don’t seem to go to the Court System, but the Court Officers have worked out their own payment plan.
Bill Eigel’s Gift to Juan Toscano
In 2022, State Senator Bill Eigel helped pass a law that made Missouri the least transparent state in the nation for court records. Every witness's name gets deleted. Every victim's name disappears. Police officers become “Officer P.” Prosecutors become nameless. The law passed as part of an omnibus bill—buried in hundreds of pages of other legislation—and was never actually debated on the floor.
Eugene Volokh, the libertarian law professor, called it “a serious problem”. Former federal judge Paul Cassell said he’d never seen anything like it: “I am not aware of any jurisdiction mandating such a broad prohibition on use of names.”
The law started because a lady named Kara Elms testified that her child’s name shouldn’t be on Case.net after a summer camp injury lawsuit. Fair enough. Protect the children, right?
Except the final language went way beyond kids—it redacts adults, victims, witnesses, everyone. And nobody in the legislature seemed to notice or care.
Mark Sableman, a media lawyer, says Missouri became the “State of Unnamed Persons.” Even murder victims’ names are secret now, though the dead have no privacy rights under common law.
The law either performed perfectly or it performed in a way no one could predict. Either the sponsors, Bill Eigel and Adam Schnelting, cleverly planned this, or they were duped. Like they are duped on so many other laws, such as SJR 33 (Legalizing the dehumanization of preborn children).
How Eigel’s Law Prosecuted Crystal Umfress
Crystal reported Juan Toscano, Commissioner Huber, and Pilar Sanchez for running a liquor license fraud scheme in early 2023. She had evidence. She had witnesses. She went to the authorities.
Then the authorities charged her with arson on the weakest of links, using the worst witness possible—one that was already discredited as having ties to Juan Toscano’s network.
The star witness against Crystal was Misty Glass—the DMV clerk who’d been running fraudulent IDs for Toscano. Glass’s boyfriend, Kerry Raymond, was caught on camera lighting the fire. But Jain prosecuted Crystal instead.
Here’s where Eigel’s law comes in to Crystal’s case. The Missouri Department of Revenue issued a probable cause statement documenting Glass’s crimes. Special Agent Adam Mathias investigated. He documented everything. Glass processed fake IDs at the Kennett DMV, mailed them to houses belonging to Deonna Perkins and April Miller. They testified that Glass sold those IDs to Juan Toscano for $300 each. This supplied restaurant workers with fake identities while Toscano and his network made money.
Nicholas Jain never filed charges against Misty Glass. Special Agent Mathias had the evidence. The Department of Revenue gave Jain the probable cause statement. Jain buried it. She got a deal—sources say she agreed to testify against Crystal in exchange for silence about the “wider contamination.”
The Department of Revenue investigation? Hidden. No charges filed. When Deonna Perkins testified in February 2026, she “was just allowed to ask about charges but no details since never charged.”
Eigel’s redaction law keeps most Missourians from knowing that Deonna Perkins or April Miller testified about Toscano’s ID operation. Keeps them from knowing the Department of Revenue caught Misty Glass red-handed. Keeps them from knowing Jain buried it all to protect the network. It also makes it difficult for lawyers to track information within the court system to protect their clients. They can’t access modern tools, but have to act as if the court system is as outdated as 1991.
Further, you won’t find divorce records for political figures because of this redaction process that Eigel and Schnelting pushed through the omnibus bill (which was unconstitutional). I challenge you. Go look up in Casenet the divorce records of Missouri politicians in the online Missouri Casenet.
The law doesn’t protect witnesses. It protects criminals by making it impossible to track corruption patterns.
When Police Officers Disappear
Under Eigel’s law, police officers are witnesses. That means their names get redacted.
Alan Gomez killed Eric Mayberry in September 2025. He had a prior DWI in 2023 and an outstanding warrant. In August 2025—one month before he killed Eric—Gomez got pulled over for speeding. No license. Active warrant. The cops let him go.
Which cops? We’ll never know. Their names are redacted. Missouri State Highway Patrol Report I514696E documented a pattern where officers give illegal immigrants rides home instead of taking them to jail, specifically to avoid triggering ICE detention. But under Eigel’s law, those officers are nameless.
You can’t hold corrupt cops accountable when you don’t know their names.
“Adios Amigos!”
During his 2024 campaign for Missouri governor, Bill Eigel made illegal immigration his signature issue. He promised to declare an invasion, round up 50,000-70,000 undocumented people, and “drive the buses myself to the border.”
His campaign posted a photo on X with this caption: “Juan Toscano grew up on the border. He’s a HUGE fan of my ‘Translator’ ad and my plan to deport all illegals. Juan and I have a simple message for illegals in Missouri: ‘Adios Amigos!’”
Let that sink in.
Eigel campaigned on mass deportation while taking photos with the fixer who makes immigration charges disappear for $1,000 minimum. Eigel passed a law that makes Missouri courts opaque—perfect for hiding corruption. Eigel’s law helped Nicholas Jain prosecute a whistleblower while burying evidence against the DMV clerk running fake IDs for Toscano.
Did Eigel know what his law would do? Did he intend to help Toscano’s network? I don’t know. Maybe he’s just incompetent. Maybe he genuinely thought he was protecting children’s privacy.
But intent doesn’t matter. The result is what matters.
Eigel’s law gave prosecutors like Nicholas Jain the perfect tool to silence whistleblowers while protecting the criminal networks that profit from illegal immigration. Whether Eigel meant to do that or not, that’s what happened. Crystal Umfress got prosecuted by a system that Eigel helped make opaque, using a law that shields the very criminals Eigel claims to oppose.
The Missouri Freedom Caucus loves to talk about the swamp in Washington, D.C. Turns out they’re building their own swamp right here—they’re just better at hiding it because they wrote the laws that delete the names. Bill Eigel recently said he doesn’t know who I am in a Facebook post.
He complained about my “depraved satire” that depicted politicians eating infants. After the Epstein files, I don’t think my satire is satire anymore. I apparently didn’t go far enough.
What is more depraved, Bill? Helping take away Crystal’s liberties and empowering networks like Juan’s, so you can run for governor, or my satire that ended up true?
What Happens Now?
The jury called bullshit on Jain’s prosecution. But Crystal’s gagged and facing another charge. She can’t speak freely about the network that tried to destroy her.
Eric Mayberry’s family waits for justice while Juan Toscano walks around Kennett like nothing happened, growing wealthy and building his empire of blood. He owns Jain’s shorthairs.
Plutarco Vargas-Alvarez injured five people, including a child, while driving drunk for at least the third time, and Jain recommended bond.
The supposed grassroots Bill Eigel campaigned on deportation in 2024, while his law protects the networks that profit from illegal immigration. Whether he meant to or not doesn’t matter—the result is what counts. His law made it easier to prosecute an innocent woman while burying evidence against the criminals she exposed.
The state-level system—Eigel’s redaction law, Bailey’s refusal to investigate before leaving for the FBI as a deputy director, the auditor’s buried investigation—all of it worked together to ensure local prosecutors like Nicholas Jain can persecute whistleblowers while protecting the networks that make money off illegal workers, DWI crashes, and fraudulent liquor licenses.
Crystal’s acquittal proved the charges were false. Her ongoing gag order continues.
David Rice is an investigative journalist with HickChristian News. If you have information about these networks, contact federal authorities.
Previous investigations:
Praying for justice.
Is she now going to file suit against the perpetrators of injustice within that corrupt area?