Investigators share new details in 2019 disappearance of Los Angeles County man connected to religious group
Ruben Moreno, 41, was last seen in Dec. 2017 at a home in the 3900 block of Swarthmore Court, according to the Claremont Police Department. They say that he was one amongst members of a religious organization known as "His Way Spirit Led Assemblies."
Detectives noted that Moreno was living at the residence with other members of the group at the time. None of them live at or occupy the residence any longer, police noted.
Though he wasn't seen after then, family members didn't report him missing until August of 2019.
Since then, police have been unable to locate any leads that led to Moreno's location. He is described as standing about 5-foot-6 and weighing around 180 pounds. He has black hair and brown eyes.
"We are aware of public interest in possible connections between this case and a separate missing persons investigation out of Redlands," CPD said in a press release. "At this time, the only similarity between the two cases are the individuals' ties to His Way Spirit Led Assemblies."
The case they're referring to is that of missing Tennessee man Emilio Salem Ghanem. He was reported missing from Redlands in 2023 after visiting a Starbucks and has not been seen since. Redlands Police Department investigators are looking into his disappearance as a potential homicide.
Ghanem, who is in his mid-40s, is said to be about 5-foot-7 and weighs around 130 pounds. He has hazel eyes and black hair.
In recent weeks, investigators have shared new details on his disappearance, disclosing that he was a member of the same religious organization for nearly two decades and worked for a pest control company owned by the group.
Anyone with more information on either of the men's whereabouts is urged to contact CPD at (909) 399-5411 or RPD at (909) 551-4424.
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Musk would hold – meetings with line-level employees from every function of the plant – from the manufacturing line to operations to HR – and issue directives right then and there to resolve the issues employees raised.' The complaint goes on to describe a significant portion of the carmaker's 'hastily-hired and poorly-vetted' workforce in Fremont as 'blatant racists and misogynists.' 'Many who have worked there have likened the workplace to the Jim Crow South; an environment in which Black employees and brown-skinned workers are besieged with constant racial abuse, stereotyping, and hostility – including with repeated use of inarguably the most brutal and degrading racial slur in the history of humanity: N****r,' according to the complaint. '... Black Tesla employees have reported regularly encountering nooses on desks and other equipment as well as seeing the word 'N****r' graffitied on walls, in bathroom stalls, elevators – even on new Tesla vehicles rolling off the production line.' The complaint filed by Murray and his former coworkers alleges that the 'use of the 'N-word' was prevalent' at Fremont. In late 2021, one of Murray's direct reports, a Black security officer who was also a former cop, 'was victimized when a Tesla employee called her a n****r,' the complaint states. 'Murray's colleague was so distressed by the incident and the impunity with which the word was used toward her… that she had to take a medical leave from work to recover from the trauma,' according to the complaint. 'Yet, instead of offering encouragement, Murray's supervisor… counseled him that Murray should be informing all new Black security personnel that the use of the 'N-word' was simply engrained [sic] in the culture at Tesla and, so, Murray should only be bringing aboard that are willing to accept and acquiesce to the prevalence of that word in the workplace.' In another incident indicative of the 'racial tension and toxicity' at Tesla's Fremont plant, the complaint says a Black assembly-line employee working on a vehicle called out a warning after he spotted a coworker about to do something that could potentially damage the car. According to the complaint, the coworker, who was white, 'responded by angrily yelling back, 'Do you want to hang by a tree?'' Supervisors were also known to abuse Tesla's 'zero tolerance' policy at the time for drug and alcohol use on the job, the complaint goes on. It says that if a higher-up suspected an employee was under the influence, they could report the person to security and Murray or someone from his team would then escort them off the premises 'without question.' However, in 'many instances,' the supposedly intoxicated employee did not appear that way to the security officer tasked with removing them, according to the complaint. 'As it turned out, many supervisors and managers were merely using the policy as a means to retaliate against their subordinates – and, in particular, when a line employee had turned down the supervisor or manager's sexual advances,' the complaint states. 'Or, when the manager or supervisor wanted to retaliate against someone because of their race or ethnicity. Or, when the manager or supervisor wanted to retaliate against someone because of a complaint an employee had lodged against them.' Yet, the complaint claims incidents such as these were swept under the rug by one specific Tesla manager who had 'an irrational fixation on fostering the delusion that the environment and culture at Tesla is one of tolerance and innovation, rather than racism and retaliation.' Because of sky-high demand for Tesla vehicles at the time, if a violent or racist Tesla employee were to actually get fired for cause, they were regularly 'loopholed' back in via a temp agency, according to the complaint. This, the filing says, allowed them to bypass the usual background check, and 'oftentimes' meant an employee who had been previously victimized 'had to actually resume working with their attacker and tormentor.' One loopholed employee who had been let go for workplace violence returned to Fremont and promptly attacked another colleague, the complaint states. For his part, the complaint says Murray 'was outspoken' with Tesla management about safety and security concerns in Fremont. For that, he wound up 'summarily fired under the pretextual guise of 'poor performance,'' even though he had never once been disciplined and was promoted five times in his six years with Tesla. Murray's co-defendants all endured similar experiences, being drummed off the payroll for supposed 'poor performance,' according to the complaint. Each of them had brought up serious concerns about issues at Tesla, or had investigated and substantiated employee wrongdoing, and were subsequently 'outright fired' for doing so, or resigned before they could be terminated, the complaint alleges. None had ever received any negative performance reviews, according to the complaint. Murray and his co-defendants are suing Tesla on five causes of action, including retaliation, wrongful termination and failure to prevent unlawful discrimination. They are seeking compensatory damages, emotional distress damages, punitive damages and exemplary damages to be determined by a jury, plus attorneys' fees and court costs.
