DETROIT, MI -- A Novi couple has reopened their Chinese restaurant, Kim's Garden, while free on bond facing federal prison for allegedly harboring illegal aliens.

Federal investigators say 48-year-old Ada Mei Lei and her husband, 55-year-old Roger Tam, intentionally employed off-the-books Mexicans, who were in the U.S. illegally, at their restaurant.

Five of the workers, who also lived in the cramped basement of their Novi home -- described as a "flophouse" by the U.S. Attorney's Office -- died in a Jan. 31 house fire.

The victims are Pablo Alvaro Encino, 23; Leonel Alvarado-Rodriguez, 18; Miguel Nunez Diaz, 23; Brayan Alexis Medina Contreras, 16; and Simeon Diaz Nunez, 18.

Their deaths and initial inability to ID the victims sparked an investigation that resulted in Lei and Tam each being charged with six crimes, including five counts of harboring and shielding illegal aliens from detection for the purposes of commercial and private financial gain; and one count of conspiracy to harbor illegal aliens.

Both are free on $10,000 unsecured bonds. Tam spent nearly a week in jail before being released following a Feb. 17 detention hearing. Lei, who was initially hospitalized for unknown reasons, turned herself in but was never jailed, says her attorney, Arthur J. Weiss.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Brandon Bolling said at Tam's detention hearing his office planned to charge Tam with harboring an illegal alien with reckless disregard causing death, punishable by up to life in prison or death. That charge has not been filed.

Tam's Dearborn Heights-based attorney Raymond Kassar said on Feb. 17 his client planned to reopen his Novi restaurant, which opened nearly 27 years ago and closed following the fatal house fire.

Tam answered the phone at the restaurant Friday. He confirmed the restaurant reopened but directed any further questions to his attorney.

Described on Google reviews as an "old-school Chinese eatery" featuring "traditional fare and dim sum meals in an unpretentious atmosphere," Kim's Garden has received an average of 3 out of 5 stars.

Tam, who emigrated to the U.S. from Hong Kong in 1989, and his wife, are legal U.S. residents.

Investigators say the couple's greed led them to illegally employ Mexican immigrants who worked long hours for "substandard wages."

Tam, whose family owns a second house in Novi, moved out of their home on Mystic Forest Drive -- where Tam's employees lived and died -- days before the fatal fire due to a cockroach infestation.

Prosecutors say Tam's basement contained two bedrooms rooms, a refrigerator, stove, mattresses, futons and piles of chairs believed to be from Tam's restaurant, but no fire extinguishers and an inoperable fire alarm. The fire alarm battery was removed by Lei to stop it from beeping, Bolling said.

The basement wasn't property permitted for tenants, there were block windows and and no egresses to allow emergency escape.

"The only way to get out of the basement would have been to go up the stairs," Bolling said.

Novi fire investigators say the fire was "accidental" and likely began on a mattress, possibly due to "careless smoking."

Federal investigators served a search warrant and found restaurant records that didn't list the names of the Mexican workers. Records only listed employees who were "on the books," said Bolling.

A brother of one of the fire victims told federal investigators he previously worked for Tam and Lei under a similar arrangement. He received $2,000 a month, free board in the basement, meals and rides to and from work in exchange for working 72 hours a week.

Kassar said it was "a pretty good salary, not slave labor," and that Tam treated his employees "like family," even spending holidays with them.

Tam has two college-age children, a son at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and daughter attending the University of Michigan-Dearborn. Several of his siblings and other relatives live in Michigan.

He married his wife in 1992 and hasn't returned to China in nearly 20 years.