By ADRIANA GARDELLA
The New York Times
July 13, 2011
David Cox was at his desk in September 2009, when his receptionist announced an unexpected visitor, a special agent from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, also known as ICE. Mr. Cox is chief executive of L. E. Cooke Company, a fourth-generation, family-owned nursery in Visalia, Calif., that grows deciduous trees and shrubs. The agent handed Mr. Cox a letter and informed him he had three days to produce I-9 employment-eligibility forms for all current employees. Mr. Cox said the agent was “pleasant and nonthreatening,” but he noticed she carried a gun.
L. E. Cook was one of 1,444 businesses to receive an introduction to ICE’s stepped-up worksite enforcement program in 2009 — almost three times the number audited in 2008. Last year, 2,196 businesses were audited. An ICE representative said the agency did not categorize audits by business type and that the law applied across industries.
“Any company is at risk at any given time,” said Leon Versfeld, an immigration lawyer in Kansas City, Mo. In one prominent case, American Apparel, the clothing manufacturer, was forced to terminate 1,800 undocumented workers after a 2009 audit. Chipotle Mexican Grill, the restaurant chain, has let go hundreds of workers since its audit began last year.
While the administration of George W. Bush focused on headline-making raids that resulted in arrests of immigrant workers, the Obama administration has gone after employers with ICE’s I-9 audits on the theory that employers who hire unauthorized workers create the demand that drives most illegal immigration.
In addition, the Social Security Administration has resumed sending “no-match” letters after a three-year hiatus. The letters, which alert employers that information on an employee’s W-2 form does not match information on file with the Social Security Administration, had been halted in 2007. The main purpose is ostensibly to ensure that employee Social Security accounts are credited properly, but the letters can also be used by ICE to show that an employer had reason to believe an employee might not have documentation.
“The master narrative of immigration reform is being crafted around the notion of unscrupulous employers seeking cheap labor,” said Craig Regelbrugge, a lawyer and lobbyist with the American Nursery and Landscape Association.
Unscrupulous employers exist, Mr. Regelbrugge said, but more often he sees business owners who are just trying to follow the law. When a new hire produces seemingly legitimate forms of documentation required by the I-9 form, the employer must accept them. (To refuse could expose the owner to charges of employment discrimination.) “The employer is not required to be a forensics expert,” said Monte Lake, an immigration lawyer in Washington.
The upshot of the more aggressive enforcement is that even employers who have followed the rules can be devastated by an audit that compels them to fire valuable, long-time employees.
The I-9 audit of Mr. Cox’s nursery revealed that 26 of his 99 employees were not authorized to work in the United States. Because ICE determined he had acted reasonably in hiring them, Mr. Cox was not fined or held criminally liable. But after confirming that the 26 employees could not produce authentic documents, he was forced to fire them. All had been with him for five to 10 years, and he lost half of his budding crew, a highly specialized team that grafts trees. “Telling them was probably the worst day of my life,” he said. “I don’t just sit at a desk here, I’m actually out in the field harvesting with them.”
Mr. Cox said he was lucky the audit hit midrecession, after he had already reduced his work force and inventory. Still, he estimates that his 2009 expenses climbed 10 percent as a result of the terminations. And, despite California’s high unemployment rate, finding replacement employees has proved challenging. “I’ve gone through more workers this year than I have in the past 10 years combined,” Mr. Cox said.
While most such workers earn the $8-an-hour minimum wage in California, Mr. Cox said he generally paid $8.90 an hour for a 50-hour week. The terminated budding crew workers made $10 an hour. Compensation includes state-mandated overtime of time and a half, health insurance and two weeks’ paid vacation. “If I raised the wage,” he said, “I’d have to shut my doors.”
Meanwhile, after an audit, ICE does not round up the affected workers for deportation. That meant Mr. Cox’s former workers were free to seek employment elsewhere — including with his competitors. Mr. Cox said that he knew through his remaining workers that the terminated employees were all working in the area.
After the audit, Mr. Cox started using E-Verify, a federal program that lets employers confirm the authenticity of a job applicant’s Social Security and green card numbers electronically. Although the program’s use is mandatory in some states, its reliability has been debated, and it remains voluntary in California. A bill in Congress that would require all American employers to use the program could go to a vote this month.
The owner of another agricultural business, this one on the East Coast, requested anonymity because he was currently undergoing an I-9 audit that had resulted in the loss of half of his work force. He said the employees he was forced to terminate were 25 to 40 years old and had been in the United States for five to 10 years. Many were raising children born here. “They’re all staying here and working for someone else,” he said.
After the terminations, the East Coast owner said he was struggling to get replacement workers up to speed. He has endured a substantial increase in customer complaints — to 30 a week from about three — and has reduced his 2011 sales goals by 15 percent. The terminated employees included members of his management team who earned $12 to $15 an hour. He paid them all their vacation pay, and said he was bothered by the perception that employers like him were unscrupulous and treated undocumented workers unfairly. “We did everything by the book,” he said. “There were a lot of tears here.”
While the human side of the issue is compelling, employers must comply with the law, said Mr. Lake, the immigration lawyer. There is no way to avoid an ICE audit, but establishing and maintaining the right procedures can help you survive one. Mr. Lake recommends that employers review their practices and seek professional assistance if they are not knowledgeable about legal requirements. Sloppy record-keeping can lead to fines for technical violations.
If a review reveals incomplete I-9 forms, employers should fill in the missing information and initial it with the date and time it was added. Mr. Lake advises random checks to ensure that employees are completing the forms. Be sure to retain I-9 forms for the legally required period of time — the longer of three years or one year after the employee leaves the company. Business owners should understand their obligations upon receiving a no-match letter. Mr. Lake advises employers who receive these letters to meet one-on-one with the designated worker to ensure that a clerical error did not cause the confusion, confirming that names are spelled correctly and no numbers have been transposed.
Assuming there is no mistake, Mr. Lake said the owner must instruct the worker to pursue the issue with the Social Security Administration and report back within a “reasonable time.” Document your actions and treat all workers the same, Mr. Lake said. If an employee reports that everything is fine, and you get another no-match letter the next year, you know it is not fine. After that, Mr. Lake said, there is no good answer if ICE conducts an audit and asks, “Why didn’t you take action the second time?”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/14/business/smallbusiness/how-a-small-business-can-survive-an-immigration-audit.html?_r=1
Showing posts with label Fines Against Employers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fines Against Employers. Show all posts
Monday, July 18, 2011
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Undocumented immigrants released from prison after workplace raid
By Rebekah L. Cowell
Indy Week
May 25, 2011
Six undocumented immigrants who had served six months in federal prison on immigration charges were released yesterday. They were released into the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcements officers after posting immigration bonds in Charlotte. The bond amounts ranged from $5,000—$6,000.
The men—Rafael Garcia-Tiscareno, Jose Guadalupe Rodriguez, Lucio Huerta-Ponce, Luis Humberto Huerta-Ponce, Luis Raul Huerta-Ponce, Juan Manuel Martinez, Rodriguez, Jorge Alberto Ruiz-Ponce—were employees of Durham-based J&A Framers and had been arrested during several workplace raids in the Triangle last November.
A seventh man, Victorino Gutierrez-Licona, is scheduled to appear at a bond hearing next month; he received a seven-month sentence. Two of the former employees were not eligible for an immigration bond.
All of the men pled guilty in March to entering the United States illegally.
In January, eight other employees pled guilty to misdemeanor immigration charges. They served 30 days in jail and were later released on immigration bonds.
“What happened to these men and their families is really sad, and yet another example of how the Obama administration is saying one thing about what their immigration policy is and doing the opposite,” said Marty Rosenbluth, executive director of the N.C. Immigrant Rights Project. “We hear over and over ICE officials saying that they are doing work place raids anymore. These guys were caught up in an investigation targeted at their employer. But instead of offering them the option of just returning voluntarily, or even just putting them into deportation proceedings, Obama’s Justice Department charged them with felony re-entry and they ended up in jail for six months. The only crime they committed was trying to feed their families”
Rosenbluth argued for the former workers' immigration bonds. He said that the next step is to get the men hearings in immigration court where they will try to show that they have the right to stay in the United States.
The men's employers, J&A Framing owners Jose Alfredo Lopez Ponce and Juan Antonio Lopez Ponce, were indicted Dec. 15 on charges including smuggling and harboring and recruiting immigrants to work.
On April 6, the men, who are brothers, pled guilty to illegal alien harboring and conspiracy; they are awaiting sentencing by Chief United States District Court Judge Louise Flanagan in New Bern. Each man could receive a maximum of five years in prison, three years of supervised release and at $500,000 in fines.
http://www.indyweek.com/triangulator/archives/2011/05/25/undocumented-immigrants-released-from-prison-after-workplace-raid
Indy Week
May 25, 2011
Six undocumented immigrants who had served six months in federal prison on immigration charges were released yesterday. They were released into the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcements officers after posting immigration bonds in Charlotte. The bond amounts ranged from $5,000—$6,000.
The men—Rafael Garcia-Tiscareno, Jose Guadalupe Rodriguez, Lucio Huerta-Ponce, Luis Humberto Huerta-Ponce, Luis Raul Huerta-Ponce, Juan Manuel Martinez, Rodriguez, Jorge Alberto Ruiz-Ponce—were employees of Durham-based J&A Framers and had been arrested during several workplace raids in the Triangle last November.
A seventh man, Victorino Gutierrez-Licona, is scheduled to appear at a bond hearing next month; he received a seven-month sentence. Two of the former employees were not eligible for an immigration bond.
All of the men pled guilty in March to entering the United States illegally.
In January, eight other employees pled guilty to misdemeanor immigration charges. They served 30 days in jail and were later released on immigration bonds.
“What happened to these men and their families is really sad, and yet another example of how the Obama administration is saying one thing about what their immigration policy is and doing the opposite,” said Marty Rosenbluth, executive director of the N.C. Immigrant Rights Project. “We hear over and over ICE officials saying that they are doing work place raids anymore. These guys were caught up in an investigation targeted at their employer. But instead of offering them the option of just returning voluntarily, or even just putting them into deportation proceedings, Obama’s Justice Department charged them with felony re-entry and they ended up in jail for six months. The only crime they committed was trying to feed their families”
Rosenbluth argued for the former workers' immigration bonds. He said that the next step is to get the men hearings in immigration court where they will try to show that they have the right to stay in the United States.
The men's employers, J&A Framing owners Jose Alfredo Lopez Ponce and Juan Antonio Lopez Ponce, were indicted Dec. 15 on charges including smuggling and harboring and recruiting immigrants to work.
On April 6, the men, who are brothers, pled guilty to illegal alien harboring and conspiracy; they are awaiting sentencing by Chief United States District Court Judge Louise Flanagan in New Bern. Each man could receive a maximum of five years in prison, three years of supervised release and at $500,000 in fines.
http://www.indyweek.com/triangulator/archives/2011/05/25/undocumented-immigrants-released-from-prison-after-workplace-raid
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Firm's owner gets 10 months for hiring illegal immigrants
Rick M. Vartanian told officials that unauthorized workers identified in an earlier audit were no longer with Brownwood Furniture of Rancho Cucamonga. In fact, 18 still were.
By Phil Willon
Los Angeles Times
March 09, 2011
A Rancho Cucamonga furniture company owner was sentenced to 10 months in federal prison for knowingly hiring illegal immigrants, federal officials said Tuesday.
Rick M. Vartanian, 57, of Ladera Ranch had been convicted of obstruction of justice and employing illegal immigrants at his company, Brownwood Furniture.
Along with the prison sentence, U.S. District Judge Gary Fees on Monday ordered Vartanian to pay a $15,000 fine.
In November 2009, officials said, Vartanian told investigators with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement that unauthorized workers identified during an earlier audit were no longer employed by the company.
In fact, Vartanian had kept 18 of those workers on his payroll and was concealing their employment, according to federal officials, who said the investigation began when the immigration agency received an anonymous tip that Brownwood Furniture had hired the illegal workers.
A federal audit of the company's personnel in 2009 found that 61 of the firm's 73 employees had submitted invalid documents to obtain their jobs, officials said.
"As these sentences make clear, employers who knowingly hire unauthorized workers face serious consequences," Claude Arnold, special agent in charge for ICE Homeland Security investigations in Los Angeles, said in a statement.
Brownwood Furniture's vice president, Michael Patrick Eberly, 48, of Alta Loma, also pleaded guilty to one count of employing unauthorized workers.
He was sentenced to one year of probation and ordered to pay a $10,000 fine.
In 2009, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano directed immigration officials to focus their worksite enforcement resources on the criminal prosecution of employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants. In fiscal year 2010, a record 180 business owners, employers and managers were charged with illegal hiring, up from 114 in fiscal 2009 and 135 the previous year.
Also in fiscal 2010, immigration officials conducted more than 2,200 employer audits, up from more than 1,400 in fiscal 2009.
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/mar/09/local/la-me-0309-illegal-hiring-20110309
By Phil Willon
Los Angeles Times
March 09, 2011
A Rancho Cucamonga furniture company owner was sentenced to 10 months in federal prison for knowingly hiring illegal immigrants, federal officials said Tuesday.
Rick M. Vartanian, 57, of Ladera Ranch had been convicted of obstruction of justice and employing illegal immigrants at his company, Brownwood Furniture.
Along with the prison sentence, U.S. District Judge Gary Fees on Monday ordered Vartanian to pay a $15,000 fine.
In November 2009, officials said, Vartanian told investigators with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement that unauthorized workers identified during an earlier audit were no longer employed by the company.
In fact, Vartanian had kept 18 of those workers on his payroll and was concealing their employment, according to federal officials, who said the investigation began when the immigration agency received an anonymous tip that Brownwood Furniture had hired the illegal workers.
A federal audit of the company's personnel in 2009 found that 61 of the firm's 73 employees had submitted invalid documents to obtain their jobs, officials said.
"As these sentences make clear, employers who knowingly hire unauthorized workers face serious consequences," Claude Arnold, special agent in charge for ICE Homeland Security investigations in Los Angeles, said in a statement.
Brownwood Furniture's vice president, Michael Patrick Eberly, 48, of Alta Loma, also pleaded guilty to one count of employing unauthorized workers.
He was sentenced to one year of probation and ordered to pay a $10,000 fine.
In 2009, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano directed immigration officials to focus their worksite enforcement resources on the criminal prosecution of employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants. In fiscal year 2010, a record 180 business owners, employers and managers were charged with illegal hiring, up from 114 in fiscal 2009 and 135 the previous year.
Also in fiscal 2010, immigration officials conducted more than 2,200 employer audits, up from more than 1,400 in fiscal 2009.
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/mar/09/local/la-me-0309-illegal-hiring-20110309
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Texas bar owners sentenced for hiring illegal alien barmaids/prostitutes
By David Gibson
The Examiner
January 11th, 2011
On Monday, U.S. District Judge Randy Crane sentenced Tereso Olivo, 54, to 15 months in federal prison without parole and two years of supervised release on human smuggling charges.
The Examiner
January 11th, 2011
On Monday, U.S. District Judge Randy Crane sentenced Tereso Olivo, 54, to 15 months in federal prison without parole and two years of supervised release on human smuggling charges.
In Spanish, Nancy Olivo, 43, then implored the judge: “I ask, your honor, to have leniency on me for the sake of my children. I know I was wrong.”
She was sentenced to two years of probation with six months of house arrest. An illegal alien herself, Olivo is scheduled for deportation proceedings after she serves her sentence.
Three months ago, the couple pleaded guilty to harboring illegal aliens who worked as barmaids and prostitutes at their bar (El Centenario) just outside Mission, Texas.
Last April, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Texas Alcohol Beverage Commission agents raided the bar, after receiving a tip that the couple was smuggling women and forcing them into prostitution.
According to investigators, at least eight illegal aliens worked at the bar, with three of them living at an apartment owned by the Olivos.
All of the illegal alien barmaids/prostitutes have been deported back to Mexico.
According to Jerry Robinette, the head of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement in South Texas, human trafficking for the purpose of prostitution is on the rise in the region.
In September, Beleal Garcia Gonzalez was found guilty on three counts of sex trafficking and conspiracy and six counts of harboring illegal aliens.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Gonzalez lured three Honduran minors here to work in his Mission bar, promising them waitress jobs at a salary of $700 a week.
However, upon arrival, the girls-- ages 14, 15, and 17--were forced to sit in the bar with older men, and have sex with them. Gonzalez then informed them that they would only be paid $120 a week for their services, and that each of them owed him $4,500 in smuggling fees.
The girls were forced to split their time between the Bar El Paraiso and a nearby stash house.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents found the teenagers walking home from the bar one morning in January 2010, wearing skimpy clothing, and took them into custody.
Thanks to an unprotected border, we now have prostitution rings engaging in kidnapping and human trafficking operating throughout the in U.S.
Read more about this growing problem: http://www.examiner.com/immigration-reform-in-national/illegal-alien-sex-slavery-operation-discovered-south-carolina
Saturday, December 18, 2010
UPDATE: Durham brothers face human smuggling charges after raid
By Sarah Ovaska
The Progressive Pulse
December 16, 2010
Two brothers who run J&A Framers Carpentry Inc., a local home framing company, were indicted this week and charged with underpaying workers they hired by working with smugglers to bring the men to Durham.
The brothers, who are originally from Mexico but got their U.S. citizenships in the 1980s through marriages to American women, are accused of paying the 100 workers they used for their prospering construction business less than the minimum wage, even taking out money from paychecks to pay off coyotes, or smugglers, that brought the laborers from Mexico to U.S.
Last week, NC Policy Watch wrote about an immigration raid that resulted in the arrests of 18 J&A workers, eight of whom have since plead guilty to charges of evading immigration inspection at the border and are facing deportation proceedings . The coordinated arrests last month prompted some fears in Latino communities that immigration agents might be returning to the workplace raids seen more often under the Bush administration.
At that time, federal prosecutors and immigration officials had little to say about the Lopez-Ponce brothers.
But Tuesday’s indictments reveal that the Lopez-Ponce brothers were the larger targets for federal officials. The two men are facing felony charges of “conspiring to bring in and harbor illegal aliens,” “bringing an illegal alien into the U.S.” and “engaging in an pattern of practice of unlawful hiring and recruiting unauthorized aliens,” according to federal court documents.
The brothers are accused of taking in $2.3 million in business revenue from contractors from 2005 to 2010, but not taking out the proper payroll taxes of their employees . They’re also accused of withholding money from paychecks to pay off coyotes and taking out rent money for trailers that some of their workers lived in that the Lopez-Ponce brothers owned, according to the federal indictment.
The brothers are expected to be in front of a judge at 10 a.m. Monday for a hearing in the federal courthouse in downtown Raleigh.
http://pulse.ncpolicywatch.org/2010/12/16/update-durham-brothers-face-human-smuggling-charges-after-raid/
The Progressive Pulse
December 16, 2010
Two brothers who run J&A Framers Carpentry Inc., a local home framing company, were indicted this week and charged with underpaying workers they hired by working with smugglers to bring the men to Durham.
The brothers, who are originally from Mexico but got their U.S. citizenships in the 1980s through marriages to American women, are accused of paying the 100 workers they used for their prospering construction business less than the minimum wage, even taking out money from paychecks to pay off coyotes, or smugglers, that brought the laborers from Mexico to U.S.
Last week, NC Policy Watch wrote about an immigration raid that resulted in the arrests of 18 J&A workers, eight of whom have since plead guilty to charges of evading immigration inspection at the border and are facing deportation proceedings . The coordinated arrests last month prompted some fears in Latino communities that immigration agents might be returning to the workplace raids seen more often under the Bush administration.
At that time, federal prosecutors and immigration officials had little to say about the Lopez-Ponce brothers.
But Tuesday’s indictments reveal that the Lopez-Ponce brothers were the larger targets for federal officials. The two men are facing felony charges of “conspiring to bring in and harbor illegal aliens,” “bringing an illegal alien into the U.S.” and “engaging in an pattern of practice of unlawful hiring and recruiting unauthorized aliens,” according to federal court documents.
The brothers are accused of taking in $2.3 million in business revenue from contractors from 2005 to 2010, but not taking out the proper payroll taxes of their employees . They’re also accused of withholding money from paychecks to pay off coyotes and taking out rent money for trailers that some of their workers lived in that the Lopez-Ponce brothers owned, according to the federal indictment.
The brothers are expected to be in front of a judge at 10 a.m. Monday for a hearing in the federal courthouse in downtown Raleigh.
http://pulse.ncpolicywatch.org/2010/12/16/update-durham-brothers-face-human-smuggling-charges-after-raid/
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Immigration agents raid Otay Mesa bakery
By Morgan Lee
San Diego Union Tribune
October 15, 2010
The owner and three employees of a wholesale bakery in Otay Mesa have been charged with running an extensive scheme to hire and harbor illegal immigrants and evade detection by authorities. The charges were filed Thursday after federal agents swept through the business in an industrial zone near the Mexican border and arrested more than half of its staff.
In a criminal complaint, the U.S. Attorney’s Office accused the owner of S & S Bakery of altering workers’ delivery routes or keeping them at the factory to avoid detection by immigration officials. The owner also allegedly signed off on mismatched Social Security numbers for employees who fabricated, bought and sold fake government IDs, the complaint said.
One manager, himself an illegal immigrant, allegedly lived with 10 other illegal employees — some of them his colleagues, according to an anonymous informant cited in the complaint.
During a Wednesday raid on the bakery by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, 41 workers out of 73 on-site were identified as illegal immigrants.
The business, located about a quarter-mile from a U.S. Border Patrol office, distributed its goods to military bases, prisons, hospitals, schools and even a federal building where federal immigration officials and prosecutors work.
Business owner Jesse William Fadick, 64; managers Rigoberto Sarmiento-Machuca and Rogelio Machuca-Sarmiento, 35 and 46 respectively; and employee Abel Baizabal, 38, were charged with conspiracy to harbor illegal aliens, false representation of a Social Security number, fraud and misuse of entry documents.
One S & S Bakery employee, Norma Angelica Flores, faces criminal charges on accusations that she returned to the United States after being deported in 2005.
An attorney for Fadick, the only U.S. citizen among the defendants, said his client will plead not guilty.
“We recognize fully how serious the charges are,” said attorney Howard Frank. The accused are scheduled for arraignment today or Monday.
The case against S & S Bakery was rare in its scope and seriousness, said Marc Carlos, a longtime criminal defense attorney and partner at Bardsley & Carlos LLP in downtown San Diego.
“I’m in federal court every day, really that often, and this type of prosecution is rare. In all the cases I’ve seen come through federal court, there’s been nothing of this scale,” said Carlos. “It’s just not typical for a business to make a practice, a policy of subverting immigration laws.”
Carlos said the U.S. Attorney’s Office usually doesn’t press charges this serious unless it has solid material to back up the accusations.
“But the allegations are just that, and when it comes to bark versus bite, the evidence isn’t always what it seemed to be,” he said.
Carlos also said the bakery’s access to sensitive workplaces may have made authorities more concerned. ICE places a high priority on employers with access to “critical infrastructure” of national-security concern such as military bases and airports.
Of 44 employees arrested on lesser charges, some have been released pending their immigration hearings, said ICE spokeswoman Lauren Mack. Nineteen of those immigrants, all Mexican nationals, are expected to serve as material witnesses in the case.
Since President Barack Obama took office, immigration authorities have shifted from high-profile raids to audits of businesses to review their employee-verification documents. Still, ICE officials have said raids remain a crucial tool in criminal cases.
Within San Diego County, the criminal case against operators of the French Gourmet restaurant in Pacific Beach has attracted nationwide attention and sent a chill through the restaurant industry, a magnet for illegal labor.
In that case, the owner and a manager are accused of knowingly hiring undocumented workers and continuing to employ them after being told that the employees’ Social Security numbers were bogus. The defendants have asserted their innocence.
At least seven food manufacturing and distribution businesses are clustered in Otay Mesa, together employing more than 1,000 workers, according to an April study by the San Diego Association of Governments.
At S & S Bakery on Thursday evening, a man wearing a white smock and hat identified himself as one of several owners but refused to give his name. Asked if the business was still in operation, he said, “Yes, we’re doing the best we can.”
The investigation of the bakery began in September 2009 with a tip from a former employee who said manager Sarmiento-Machuca told him to obtain fraudulent work documents after wrongly assuming that he was an illegal immigrant.
In July of this year, ICE agents reviewed a wage report for 119 employees at the bakery business and found 54 who were not eligible to work in the United States.
Fadick allegedly told investigators during a post-arrest interview that he didn’t know he was employing illegal immigrants, even though several illegal workers at the business alleged that he knew their status. In addition, prosecutors said a paid informant recorded a conversation with Fadick in July during which they discussed altering delivery routes to avoid background checks for some staffers.
“But please don’t say anything, you know? I mean, I’m not supposed to know your situation,” prosecutors quoted Fadick saying.
Staff writer Janine Zúñiga contributed to this report.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/oct/14/immigration-agents-raid-san-diego-bakery/
San Diego Union Tribune
October 15, 2010
The owner and three employees of a wholesale bakery in Otay Mesa have been charged with running an extensive scheme to hire and harbor illegal immigrants and evade detection by authorities. The charges were filed Thursday after federal agents swept through the business in an industrial zone near the Mexican border and arrested more than half of its staff.
In a criminal complaint, the U.S. Attorney’s Office accused the owner of S & S Bakery of altering workers’ delivery routes or keeping them at the factory to avoid detection by immigration officials. The owner also allegedly signed off on mismatched Social Security numbers for employees who fabricated, bought and sold fake government IDs, the complaint said.
One manager, himself an illegal immigrant, allegedly lived with 10 other illegal employees — some of them his colleagues, according to an anonymous informant cited in the complaint.
During a Wednesday raid on the bakery by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, 41 workers out of 73 on-site were identified as illegal immigrants.
The business, located about a quarter-mile from a U.S. Border Patrol office, distributed its goods to military bases, prisons, hospitals, schools and even a federal building where federal immigration officials and prosecutors work.
Business owner Jesse William Fadick, 64; managers Rigoberto Sarmiento-Machuca and Rogelio Machuca-Sarmiento, 35 and 46 respectively; and employee Abel Baizabal, 38, were charged with conspiracy to harbor illegal aliens, false representation of a Social Security number, fraud and misuse of entry documents.
One S & S Bakery employee, Norma Angelica Flores, faces criminal charges on accusations that she returned to the United States after being deported in 2005.
An attorney for Fadick, the only U.S. citizen among the defendants, said his client will plead not guilty.
“We recognize fully how serious the charges are,” said attorney Howard Frank. The accused are scheduled for arraignment today or Monday.
The case against S & S Bakery was rare in its scope and seriousness, said Marc Carlos, a longtime criminal defense attorney and partner at Bardsley & Carlos LLP in downtown San Diego.
“I’m in federal court every day, really that often, and this type of prosecution is rare. In all the cases I’ve seen come through federal court, there’s been nothing of this scale,” said Carlos. “It’s just not typical for a business to make a practice, a policy of subverting immigration laws.”
Carlos said the U.S. Attorney’s Office usually doesn’t press charges this serious unless it has solid material to back up the accusations.
“But the allegations are just that, and when it comes to bark versus bite, the evidence isn’t always what it seemed to be,” he said.
Carlos also said the bakery’s access to sensitive workplaces may have made authorities more concerned. ICE places a high priority on employers with access to “critical infrastructure” of national-security concern such as military bases and airports.
Of 44 employees arrested on lesser charges, some have been released pending their immigration hearings, said ICE spokeswoman Lauren Mack. Nineteen of those immigrants, all Mexican nationals, are expected to serve as material witnesses in the case.
Since President Barack Obama took office, immigration authorities have shifted from high-profile raids to audits of businesses to review their employee-verification documents. Still, ICE officials have said raids remain a crucial tool in criminal cases.
Within San Diego County, the criminal case against operators of the French Gourmet restaurant in Pacific Beach has attracted nationwide attention and sent a chill through the restaurant industry, a magnet for illegal labor.
In that case, the owner and a manager are accused of knowingly hiring undocumented workers and continuing to employ them after being told that the employees’ Social Security numbers were bogus. The defendants have asserted their innocence.
At least seven food manufacturing and distribution businesses are clustered in Otay Mesa, together employing more than 1,000 workers, according to an April study by the San Diego Association of Governments.
At S & S Bakery on Thursday evening, a man wearing a white smock and hat identified himself as one of several owners but refused to give his name. Asked if the business was still in operation, he said, “Yes, we’re doing the best we can.”
The investigation of the bakery began in September 2009 with a tip from a former employee who said manager Sarmiento-Machuca told him to obtain fraudulent work documents after wrongly assuming that he was an illegal immigrant.
In July of this year, ICE agents reviewed a wage report for 119 employees at the bakery business and found 54 who were not eligible to work in the United States.
Fadick allegedly told investigators during a post-arrest interview that he didn’t know he was employing illegal immigrants, even though several illegal workers at the business alleged that he knew their status. In addition, prosecutors said a paid informant recorded a conversation with Fadick in July during which they discussed altering delivery routes to avoid background checks for some staffers.
“But please don’t say anything, you know? I mean, I’m not supposed to know your situation,” prosecutors quoted Fadick saying.
Staff writer Janine Zúñiga contributed to this report.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/oct/14/immigration-agents-raid-san-diego-bakery/
Friday, September 10, 2010
Immigration Crackdown Steps Into the Kitchen
By SARAH KERSHAW
The New York Times
September 7, 2010
SAN DIEGO
FOR a man facing the possibility of up to 30 years in prison, almost $4 million in fines and the government seizure of his small French restaurant here, Michel Malecot has an unusually jovial and serene air.
During lunch recently, he walked around the French Gourmet, his 45-seat restaurant, bakery and catering company in the city’s Pacific Beach neighborhood, hugging his regular customers and planting a kiss on each cheek, before meandering back into the sprawling kitchen to make himself a herring baguette with butter.
“Serve this with warm potatoes,” Mr. Malecot said, “and c’est bon.”
An immigrant from the South of France, he came here in 1972, settling in San Diego because he said the climate reminded him of home. And now it is the knotty issue of immigration that has made him a local cause célèbre, thrust him into one of the nation’s most contentious debates, jeopardized his future and sent a current of fear through the $550-billion-plus restaurant industry.
In April, Mr. Malecot, 58, was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of illegally hiring 12 undocumented immigrants and, in what prosecutors portray as a brazen deception, continuing to employ them after learning that they were in the country illegally. He pleaded not guilty. Now, if convicted, he faces the possibility of forfeiture of the restaurant building, along with an adjacent rental property, Froggy’s Bar. Legal experts say it would be an exceptionally stiff punishment, but one that could be a sign of things to come for an industry that is one of the nation’s largest employers of immigrants.
“They’re using a body of law intended for drug dealers and money launderers and going after an iconic bakery and philanthropic business,” said Jot Condie, the president of the California Restaurant Association, which has 22,000 members. “If their strategy is to get the attention of the industry, mission accomplished.”
Under a policy that went into effect in April 2009, the Obama administration is taking a much tougher stance on employers who hire illegal immigrants than any administration in decades. Enforcement agents have subjected businesses across the country to much greater scrutiny, using tactics that were almost nonexistent until two years ago. Federal officials said they expected to announce record numbers of investigations and fines by the end of the year. As of July 31, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an arm of the Department of Homeland Security, had announced investigations of 2,073 businesses so far this year, outpacing the 1,461 conducted in all of 2009.
Restaurants are not the only businesses to fall under the searchlight. But until recently, immigration enforcement had been notoriously lax, with a kind of universal wink at kitchens filled with employees working either off the books or with false documents, government officials and industry experts say.
But that is quickly changing, based on the rising number of investigations and the penalties being sought against restaurateurs.
In June, the owner of two Maryland restaurants who pleaded guilty to hiring and harboring illegal immigrants was ordered to forfeit to the government more than $700,000 in assets — in addition to his motorcycle — and faces up to 10 years in prison. In November, a restaurateur in Mississippi who had pleaded guilty to hiring illegal immigrants was sentenced to a year in prison and a year of supervised release. Combined fines in the case, shared among several defendants, amount to $600,000.
Out of a total of about 12.7 million workers in the restaurant industry, an estimated 1.4 million — both legal and illegal immigrants — are foreign born, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. According to 2008 estimates from the Pew Hispanic Center, about 20 percent of the nearly 2.6 million chefs, head cooks and cooks are illegal immigrants. Among the 360,000 dishwashers, 28 percent are undocumented, according to the estimates.
Those numbers sounded low to a Manhattan chef and restaurateur who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he does not want to draw attention to his TriBeCa restaurant.
“We always, always hire the undocumented workers,” he said. “It’s not just me, it’s everybody in the industry. First, they are willing to do the work. Second, they are willing to learn. Third, they are not paid as well. It’s an economic decision. It’s less expensive to hire an undocumented person.”
While many restaurants do comply with the law, according to government officials, labor economists say immigrants are highly appealing hires because they tend to be especially loyal, stable and dependable. They are also more likely than United States citizens to work for lower wages without health insurance, sick days or paid vacations and paid breaks.
Of nine major chefs and restaurateurs asked about the government’s intensified focus on employers of immigrants — Wolfgang Puck, Stephen P. Hanson, Stephen Starr, Jeffrey Chodorow, Danny Meyer, Daniel Boulud, Rick Bayless, Rich Melman and Nick Valenti — only Mr. Valenti’s company, the Patina Restaurant Group, would comment.
In a written statement, the company said: “Patina Restaurant Group does periodically bring in employees from other countries following all Federal Immigration laws. This is a small percentage of our workforce, for which we utilize the programs provided by the department of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, allowing us to bring in chefs and management talent from abroad, along with international students to expand their knowledge with hands on training.”
The TriBeCa restaurateur, who said he had been working in the business for more than two decades, said that about one-fourth of his employees are illegal immigrants, mostly from Mexico, Africa and South America. He said that those who provide him with Social Security numbers are paid by check. Others receive cash, which allows restaurant owners to avoid paying taxes. He insisted that he did not pay anyone less than the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.
“If they give me a Social Security number, I don’t ask questions,” he said. “That’s what people do.”
If immigration laws are fully enforced in the restaurant business, “At the end of the day, the customer is going to end up paying for it,” he said. “We’ll have to pay higher wages, more taxes and then we will have to charge more. The economy is not that great, so you charge more, you have fewer customers and more people going out of business.”
Barbara Coe, founder and president of the California Coalition for Immigration Reform, which advocates limiting immigration, said she has little sympathy for restaurants that hire illegal workers.
“Any restaurant that chooses to hire them deserves to go bankrupt,” she said. “They are padding their pockets by breaking the law.”
Some advocates for immigrants agree.
“We don’t think a restaurant should exist if it doesn’t pay legal wages,” said Ted Smukler, public policy director of Interfaith Worker Justice, a workers’ rights group. “New immigrants are deathly afraid of complaining, and that makes them appealing workers for unscrupulous employers.”
At the French Gourmet, the government says that in addition to Mr. Malecot, Richard Kauffmann, a manager and pastry chef, was deeply involved in what it calls a conspiracy. Mr. Kauffmann faces similar charges, prison time and fines, and has pleaded not guilty.
Mr. Malecot opened the French Gourmet, which now has about 120 full- and part-time employees, in 1979. He married an American woman and became a United States citizen in 1985.
He is one of the city’s top caterers, having won a slew of local and state awards for the business. Its wedding cakes have been listed as a “Best of Weddings” pick on Knot.com for several years.
But the business, whose motto is “It’s a Delicious Day at the French Gourmet!”, drew a less welcome brand of attention after Mr. Malecot catered a benefit free of charge for a veteran returning from the Iraq war in 2006. According to Mr. Malecot’s lawyer, Eugene Iredale, the small dinner was held at an Air Force base, where heightened security measures and identity checks led to the discovery that one of the French Gourmet’s employees, an Algerian immigrant, was working illegally. From then on, the authorities were watching.
According to the indictment, the business had already received what are known as “no match” letters from the Social Security Administration, saying that the Social Security numbers used by some employees were not valid. Those letters instruct employers not to take any action against the workers, but instead to resubmit valid numbers.
The indictment contends that Mr. Malecot then started paying those employees in cash, before Mr. Kauffmann and others submitted new Social Security numbers that they falsely certified as genuine. And the government says the French Gourmet went to great lengths to deceive the authorities — leading to felony charges of harboring immigrants, or concealing their illegal status.
On May 15, 2008, the streets around the French Gourmet were shut down as about a dozen armed agents stormed into the restaurant. They arrested 12 workers, dug through papers and carted away hard drives from the office.
(Mr. Malecot was in France at the time of the raid, and charges were not filed against him until last February. He surrendered in court, without being arrested, and was released on $150,000 bail.)
Mr. Malecot’s case points up one of the complexities of hiring immigrants: A federal law requires businesses to submit worker documents that “on their face reasonably appear to be genuine,” the law says. But fake papers are easily obtained by immigrants. To avoid being tripped up by paperwork that looks real, employers say that they are forced into the role of policing immigrants.
Government agencies now recommend that employers hire an auditing firm or train personnel to detect fraudulent documents. A growing number of states now require employers to use E-verify, a government-run online system that instantly determines the eligibility of job applicants to work in the United States. Even in states where the system is not required, industry experts said, more restaurants are using the system. The French Gourmet is now among them.
Critics, however, say that the data in the system can be wrong and that some people who are eligible to work are being turned away.
The National Restaurant Association is lobbying a deadlocked Congress for changes in immigration laws, including policies that would make it easier for undocumented workers to gain legal status.
Mr. Malecot, who spoke freely in an interview at the restaurant, said he believed that he had filed all the proper employment paperwork for the arrested employees. Those workers are now witnesses in the case against him, according to Mr. Iredale.
“Maybe you just look at this as destiny,” Mr. Malecot said. “I came here with nothing. I guess it’s all a game. But it’s definitely a blow, and it’s frustrating.”
Mr. Malecot is an active philanthropist in San Diego, contributing to causes including Alzheimer’s and cancer research and education to help victims of torture. His employees describe him as a father figure who has paid for their dental work and babysitting, charters a fishing boat for the annual company party and provides every employee with a week’s paid vacation, extremely rare in restaurants.
Because of his financial troubles as a result of the case, he said, he can no longer afford some of these perks. The next court date is Nov. 29.
“He’s very generous,” Asunción Gallardo, a Mexican immigrant who has cooked at the restaurant for 16 years, said in Spanish, out of earshot of Mr. Malecot. “It’s like we’re all a family. We eat — he gives us three meals a day and food to go. And then he gives out food for the poor.”
Since the indictment, Mr. Malecot said, he has lost at least $500,000 in catering jobs. Catering accounts for about 70 percent of the French Gourmet’s revenues, which so far this year amount to roughly $4.5 million, Mr. Malecot said.
But longtime customers have been dining there more often to show their support, he said.
One of them, Pat Hyndman, has been eating at the French Gourmet for 10 years and said: “My immediate reaction is this is a bunch of government nonsense. He’s the most respected caterer in town. But then I realized this is much bigger than Michel.”
Toby Lyles contributed research.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/08/dining/08crackdown.html?_r=1&emc=eta1
The New York Times
September 7, 2010
SAN DIEGO
FOR a man facing the possibility of up to 30 years in prison, almost $4 million in fines and the government seizure of his small French restaurant here, Michel Malecot has an unusually jovial and serene air.
During lunch recently, he walked around the French Gourmet, his 45-seat restaurant, bakery and catering company in the city’s Pacific Beach neighborhood, hugging his regular customers and planting a kiss on each cheek, before meandering back into the sprawling kitchen to make himself a herring baguette with butter.
“Serve this with warm potatoes,” Mr. Malecot said, “and c’est bon.”
An immigrant from the South of France, he came here in 1972, settling in San Diego because he said the climate reminded him of home. And now it is the knotty issue of immigration that has made him a local cause célèbre, thrust him into one of the nation’s most contentious debates, jeopardized his future and sent a current of fear through the $550-billion-plus restaurant industry.
In April, Mr. Malecot, 58, was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of illegally hiring 12 undocumented immigrants and, in what prosecutors portray as a brazen deception, continuing to employ them after learning that they were in the country illegally. He pleaded not guilty. Now, if convicted, he faces the possibility of forfeiture of the restaurant building, along with an adjacent rental property, Froggy’s Bar. Legal experts say it would be an exceptionally stiff punishment, but one that could be a sign of things to come for an industry that is one of the nation’s largest employers of immigrants.
“They’re using a body of law intended for drug dealers and money launderers and going after an iconic bakery and philanthropic business,” said Jot Condie, the president of the California Restaurant Association, which has 22,000 members. “If their strategy is to get the attention of the industry, mission accomplished.”
Under a policy that went into effect in April 2009, the Obama administration is taking a much tougher stance on employers who hire illegal immigrants than any administration in decades. Enforcement agents have subjected businesses across the country to much greater scrutiny, using tactics that were almost nonexistent until two years ago. Federal officials said they expected to announce record numbers of investigations and fines by the end of the year. As of July 31, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an arm of the Department of Homeland Security, had announced investigations of 2,073 businesses so far this year, outpacing the 1,461 conducted in all of 2009.
Restaurants are not the only businesses to fall under the searchlight. But until recently, immigration enforcement had been notoriously lax, with a kind of universal wink at kitchens filled with employees working either off the books or with false documents, government officials and industry experts say.
But that is quickly changing, based on the rising number of investigations and the penalties being sought against restaurateurs.
In June, the owner of two Maryland restaurants who pleaded guilty to hiring and harboring illegal immigrants was ordered to forfeit to the government more than $700,000 in assets — in addition to his motorcycle — and faces up to 10 years in prison. In November, a restaurateur in Mississippi who had pleaded guilty to hiring illegal immigrants was sentenced to a year in prison and a year of supervised release. Combined fines in the case, shared among several defendants, amount to $600,000.
Out of a total of about 12.7 million workers in the restaurant industry, an estimated 1.4 million — both legal and illegal immigrants — are foreign born, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. According to 2008 estimates from the Pew Hispanic Center, about 20 percent of the nearly 2.6 million chefs, head cooks and cooks are illegal immigrants. Among the 360,000 dishwashers, 28 percent are undocumented, according to the estimates.
Those numbers sounded low to a Manhattan chef and restaurateur who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he does not want to draw attention to his TriBeCa restaurant.
“We always, always hire the undocumented workers,” he said. “It’s not just me, it’s everybody in the industry. First, they are willing to do the work. Second, they are willing to learn. Third, they are not paid as well. It’s an economic decision. It’s less expensive to hire an undocumented person.”
While many restaurants do comply with the law, according to government officials, labor economists say immigrants are highly appealing hires because they tend to be especially loyal, stable and dependable. They are also more likely than United States citizens to work for lower wages without health insurance, sick days or paid vacations and paid breaks.
Of nine major chefs and restaurateurs asked about the government’s intensified focus on employers of immigrants — Wolfgang Puck, Stephen P. Hanson, Stephen Starr, Jeffrey Chodorow, Danny Meyer, Daniel Boulud, Rick Bayless, Rich Melman and Nick Valenti — only Mr. Valenti’s company, the Patina Restaurant Group, would comment.
In a written statement, the company said: “Patina Restaurant Group does periodically bring in employees from other countries following all Federal Immigration laws. This is a small percentage of our workforce, for which we utilize the programs provided by the department of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, allowing us to bring in chefs and management talent from abroad, along with international students to expand their knowledge with hands on training.”
The TriBeCa restaurateur, who said he had been working in the business for more than two decades, said that about one-fourth of his employees are illegal immigrants, mostly from Mexico, Africa and South America. He said that those who provide him with Social Security numbers are paid by check. Others receive cash, which allows restaurant owners to avoid paying taxes. He insisted that he did not pay anyone less than the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.
“If they give me a Social Security number, I don’t ask questions,” he said. “That’s what people do.”
If immigration laws are fully enforced in the restaurant business, “At the end of the day, the customer is going to end up paying for it,” he said. “We’ll have to pay higher wages, more taxes and then we will have to charge more. The economy is not that great, so you charge more, you have fewer customers and more people going out of business.”
Barbara Coe, founder and president of the California Coalition for Immigration Reform, which advocates limiting immigration, said she has little sympathy for restaurants that hire illegal workers.
“Any restaurant that chooses to hire them deserves to go bankrupt,” she said. “They are padding their pockets by breaking the law.”
Some advocates for immigrants agree.
“We don’t think a restaurant should exist if it doesn’t pay legal wages,” said Ted Smukler, public policy director of Interfaith Worker Justice, a workers’ rights group. “New immigrants are deathly afraid of complaining, and that makes them appealing workers for unscrupulous employers.”
At the French Gourmet, the government says that in addition to Mr. Malecot, Richard Kauffmann, a manager and pastry chef, was deeply involved in what it calls a conspiracy. Mr. Kauffmann faces similar charges, prison time and fines, and has pleaded not guilty.
Mr. Malecot opened the French Gourmet, which now has about 120 full- and part-time employees, in 1979. He married an American woman and became a United States citizen in 1985.
He is one of the city’s top caterers, having won a slew of local and state awards for the business. Its wedding cakes have been listed as a “Best of Weddings” pick on Knot.com for several years.
But the business, whose motto is “It’s a Delicious Day at the French Gourmet!”, drew a less welcome brand of attention after Mr. Malecot catered a benefit free of charge for a veteran returning from the Iraq war in 2006. According to Mr. Malecot’s lawyer, Eugene Iredale, the small dinner was held at an Air Force base, where heightened security measures and identity checks led to the discovery that one of the French Gourmet’s employees, an Algerian immigrant, was working illegally. From then on, the authorities were watching.
According to the indictment, the business had already received what are known as “no match” letters from the Social Security Administration, saying that the Social Security numbers used by some employees were not valid. Those letters instruct employers not to take any action against the workers, but instead to resubmit valid numbers.
The indictment contends that Mr. Malecot then started paying those employees in cash, before Mr. Kauffmann and others submitted new Social Security numbers that they falsely certified as genuine. And the government says the French Gourmet went to great lengths to deceive the authorities — leading to felony charges of harboring immigrants, or concealing their illegal status.
On May 15, 2008, the streets around the French Gourmet were shut down as about a dozen armed agents stormed into the restaurant. They arrested 12 workers, dug through papers and carted away hard drives from the office.
(Mr. Malecot was in France at the time of the raid, and charges were not filed against him until last February. He surrendered in court, without being arrested, and was released on $150,000 bail.)
Mr. Malecot’s case points up one of the complexities of hiring immigrants: A federal law requires businesses to submit worker documents that “on their face reasonably appear to be genuine,” the law says. But fake papers are easily obtained by immigrants. To avoid being tripped up by paperwork that looks real, employers say that they are forced into the role of policing immigrants.
Government agencies now recommend that employers hire an auditing firm or train personnel to detect fraudulent documents. A growing number of states now require employers to use E-verify, a government-run online system that instantly determines the eligibility of job applicants to work in the United States. Even in states where the system is not required, industry experts said, more restaurants are using the system. The French Gourmet is now among them.
Critics, however, say that the data in the system can be wrong and that some people who are eligible to work are being turned away.
The National Restaurant Association is lobbying a deadlocked Congress for changes in immigration laws, including policies that would make it easier for undocumented workers to gain legal status.
Mr. Malecot, who spoke freely in an interview at the restaurant, said he believed that he had filed all the proper employment paperwork for the arrested employees. Those workers are now witnesses in the case against him, according to Mr. Iredale.
“Maybe you just look at this as destiny,” Mr. Malecot said. “I came here with nothing. I guess it’s all a game. But it’s definitely a blow, and it’s frustrating.”
Mr. Malecot is an active philanthropist in San Diego, contributing to causes including Alzheimer’s and cancer research and education to help victims of torture. His employees describe him as a father figure who has paid for their dental work and babysitting, charters a fishing boat for the annual company party and provides every employee with a week’s paid vacation, extremely rare in restaurants.
Because of his financial troubles as a result of the case, he said, he can no longer afford some of these perks. The next court date is Nov. 29.
“He’s very generous,” Asunción Gallardo, a Mexican immigrant who has cooked at the restaurant for 16 years, said in Spanish, out of earshot of Mr. Malecot. “It’s like we’re all a family. We eat — he gives us three meals a day and food to go. And then he gives out food for the poor.”
Since the indictment, Mr. Malecot said, he has lost at least $500,000 in catering jobs. Catering accounts for about 70 percent of the French Gourmet’s revenues, which so far this year amount to roughly $4.5 million, Mr. Malecot said.
But longtime customers have been dining there more often to show their support, he said.
One of them, Pat Hyndman, has been eating at the French Gourmet for 10 years and said: “My immediate reaction is this is a bunch of government nonsense. He’s the most respected caterer in town. But then I realized this is much bigger than Michel.”
Toby Lyles contributed research.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/08/dining/08crackdown.html?_r=1&emc=eta1
Monday, July 26, 2010
N.J. businesses are fined nearly $640K for employing undocumented workers
The Associated Press
July 22, 2010
Immigration officials fined New Jersey businesses $640,000 in the last fiscal year for use of undocumented workers.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have fined 13 employers in New Jersey nearly $640,000 because of undocumented workers.
That's about 15 times more than the fines levied in all of fiscal year 2009, when four employers in the state were fined $44,728.
ICE spokesman Harold Ort in Newark says the agency is focused on building cases against "egregious employers" who fail to ensure their employees are eligible to work in the U.S.
Ort says the agency conducts "silent raids" by checking forms which document a person's eligibility to work in the United States.
ICE declined to name the businesses.
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/07/immigration_officials_warn_25.html
July 22, 2010
Immigration officials fined New Jersey businesses $640,000 in the last fiscal year for use of undocumented workers.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have fined 13 employers in New Jersey nearly $640,000 because of undocumented workers.
That's about 15 times more than the fines levied in all of fiscal year 2009, when four employers in the state were fined $44,728.
ICE spokesman Harold Ort in Newark says the agency is focused on building cases against "egregious employers" who fail to ensure their employees are eligible to work in the U.S.
Ort says the agency conducts "silent raids" by checking forms which document a person's eligibility to work in the United States.
ICE declined to name the businesses.
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/07/immigration_officials_warn_25.html
Friday, July 2, 2010
Rubashkin prosecutor's claim to set record straight falls short
BY NATHAN LEWIN AND GUY COOK, ATTORNEYS FOR SHOLOM RUBASHKIN
Dubuque Telegraph Herald
June 30, 2010
U.S. Attorney Stephanie Rose has decided that "silence is no longer in order" ("Setting the record straight on Rubashkin, Agriprocessors," June 23). Should a U.S. Attorney take offense at the exercise of First Amendment rights by American citizens who support Sholom Rubashkin and publicly denounce how he has been treated?
By publishing a letter that makes assertions never proved or tested in court, Ms. Rose has opened the propriety of her conduct to discussion in the media.
Nathan Lewin has criticized her in a letter to the Department of Justice. We now challenge her to debate Mr. Lewin on the propriety of the prosecution in a one-hour public session in Des Moines.
This response concerns a few errors in her published defense.
Ms. Rose portrays Postville before the May 12, 2008, raid as beset by fear that necessitated the federal government's "massive enforcement operation." Before the immigration raid Postville was enjoying a substantial economic boom because of Agriprocessors' commercial success and substantial employment at the plant. Fears of deportation, creditors, or a crumbling economy resulted from -- and were not cured by -- the ill-conceived raid.
Can Ms. Rose explain why the Department of Homeland Security has reduced substantially the immigration-raid policy Ms. Rose extols? Have the "highest levels of the United States Departments of Justice and Homeland Security" now decided that the "fears" Ms. Rose graphically describes are in fact caused by immigration raids?
Several U.S. attorneys rejected ICE's raid requests while they were in office. Her office was asked in a formal lawyer's letter to enter the Postville plant peacefully and remove those they found to be illegal aliens, as had been done in Texas. Why was this peaceful proposal rejected?
Ms. Rose praises the "tireless" federal court proceedings that followed the raid. Professor Erik Camayd-Freixas, a Spanish interpreter, wrote a detailed essay condemning the assembly-line process, and a federal civil rights lawsuit attacked the procedure she lavishly praises.
The U.S. Supreme Court held unanimously in May 2009 that the identity-theft felony her office and Judge Linda Reade threatened to use against the aliens to get them to plead guilty in 2008 was inapplicable to their case and was, therefore, misused by the prosecutors and the judge.
Ms. Rose says that Mr. Rubashkin's supporters have painted the prosecutors as "racists, Nazis and zealots."
In fact, no responsible Rubashkin supporter has said or implied that anyone on the prosecution team is a racist or a Nazi.
Her claim that Mr. Rubashkin personally profited from Agriprocessors' funds fails to note that he put personal funds into his father's wholly owned business. Agriprocessor funds paid to Sholom Rubashkin were reimbursements for Agri expenses, repayment of loans Rubashkin made to Agri or funds used for Agri purchases.
Ms. Rose claims that the accusations against her office are "vicious and false" and "ill-informed." But there are many critical accusations that she has failed to answer.
Wasn't Mr. Rubashkin handcuffed and arrested in October 2008 only to generate national publicity? The routine procedure is to tell the defendant's lawyer to bring the client in to plead to the charge.
Why was Mr. Rubashkin imprisoned for 76 days before trial on the office's bogus claim that he could flee to Israel and would be immune from extradition under Israel's "Law of Return?"
Were the charges against Mr. Rubashkin deliberately multiplied by the office through an unprecedented seven superseding indictments to 163 counts to impress the media, the public and the jury?
Why was a 1926 law that has never before in U.S. history been used for criminal prosecution invoked when the charges were based on full payments made by Mr. Rubashkin 10 days late?
Did the office prevent sale of the business to any purchaser who might employ any member of the Rubashkin family in a managerial capacity, thereby making a sale of the business virtually impossible?
A consensus of the legal community, including six former U.S. attorneys general, both liberal and conservative, has objected to Ms. Rose's overzealousness in her initial sentencing recommendation.
We trust that Ms. Rose will debate Mr. Lewin publicly on these important questions concerning the propriety of her office's conduct and tactics.
Lewin is a former Deputy U.S. Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Rights Division, teaches Supreme Court litigation at Columbia Law School, and has argued 27 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. He is principal appellate counsel for Sholom Rubashkin. Cook is a Des Moines-based attorney with Grefe & Sidney and was the principal trial counsel for Sholom Rubashkin.
http://www.thonline.com/article.cfm?id=287729
Dubuque Telegraph Herald
June 30, 2010
U.S. Attorney Stephanie Rose has decided that "silence is no longer in order" ("Setting the record straight on Rubashkin, Agriprocessors," June 23). Should a U.S. Attorney take offense at the exercise of First Amendment rights by American citizens who support Sholom Rubashkin and publicly denounce how he has been treated?
By publishing a letter that makes assertions never proved or tested in court, Ms. Rose has opened the propriety of her conduct to discussion in the media.
Nathan Lewin has criticized her in a letter to the Department of Justice. We now challenge her to debate Mr. Lewin on the propriety of the prosecution in a one-hour public session in Des Moines.
This response concerns a few errors in her published defense.
Ms. Rose portrays Postville before the May 12, 2008, raid as beset by fear that necessitated the federal government's "massive enforcement operation." Before the immigration raid Postville was enjoying a substantial economic boom because of Agriprocessors' commercial success and substantial employment at the plant. Fears of deportation, creditors, or a crumbling economy resulted from -- and were not cured by -- the ill-conceived raid.
Can Ms. Rose explain why the Department of Homeland Security has reduced substantially the immigration-raid policy Ms. Rose extols? Have the "highest levels of the United States Departments of Justice and Homeland Security" now decided that the "fears" Ms. Rose graphically describes are in fact caused by immigration raids?
Several U.S. attorneys rejected ICE's raid requests while they were in office. Her office was asked in a formal lawyer's letter to enter the Postville plant peacefully and remove those they found to be illegal aliens, as had been done in Texas. Why was this peaceful proposal rejected?
Ms. Rose praises the "tireless" federal court proceedings that followed the raid. Professor Erik Camayd-Freixas, a Spanish interpreter, wrote a detailed essay condemning the assembly-line process, and a federal civil rights lawsuit attacked the procedure she lavishly praises.
The U.S. Supreme Court held unanimously in May 2009 that the identity-theft felony her office and Judge Linda Reade threatened to use against the aliens to get them to plead guilty in 2008 was inapplicable to their case and was, therefore, misused by the prosecutors and the judge.
Ms. Rose says that Mr. Rubashkin's supporters have painted the prosecutors as "racists, Nazis and zealots."
In fact, no responsible Rubashkin supporter has said or implied that anyone on the prosecution team is a racist or a Nazi.
Her claim that Mr. Rubashkin personally profited from Agriprocessors' funds fails to note that he put personal funds into his father's wholly owned business. Agriprocessor funds paid to Sholom Rubashkin were reimbursements for Agri expenses, repayment of loans Rubashkin made to Agri or funds used for Agri purchases.
Ms. Rose claims that the accusations against her office are "vicious and false" and "ill-informed." But there are many critical accusations that she has failed to answer.
Wasn't Mr. Rubashkin handcuffed and arrested in October 2008 only to generate national publicity? The routine procedure is to tell the defendant's lawyer to bring the client in to plead to the charge.
Why was Mr. Rubashkin imprisoned for 76 days before trial on the office's bogus claim that he could flee to Israel and would be immune from extradition under Israel's "Law of Return?"
Were the charges against Mr. Rubashkin deliberately multiplied by the office through an unprecedented seven superseding indictments to 163 counts to impress the media, the public and the jury?
Why was a 1926 law that has never before in U.S. history been used for criminal prosecution invoked when the charges were based on full payments made by Mr. Rubashkin 10 days late?
Did the office prevent sale of the business to any purchaser who might employ any member of the Rubashkin family in a managerial capacity, thereby making a sale of the business virtually impossible?
A consensus of the legal community, including six former U.S. attorneys general, both liberal and conservative, has objected to Ms. Rose's overzealousness in her initial sentencing recommendation.
We trust that Ms. Rose will debate Mr. Lewin publicly on these important questions concerning the propriety of her office's conduct and tactics.
Lewin is a former Deputy U.S. Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Rights Division, teaches Supreme Court litigation at Columbia Law School, and has argued 27 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. He is principal appellate counsel for Sholom Rubashkin. Cook is a Des Moines-based attorney with Grefe & Sidney and was the principal trial counsel for Sholom Rubashkin.
http://www.thonline.com/article.cfm?id=287729
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
27-Year Sentence for Plant Manager (Postville)
By JULIA PRESTON
The New York Times
June 21, 2010
A federal judge in Iowa on Monday announced a prison sentence of 27 years on financial fraud charges for Sholom Rubashkin, the former manager of a kosher meatpacking plant where hundreds of illegal immigrant workers were arrested in a 2008 raid that garnered national attention.
Although the case against Mr. Rubashkin originally centered on immigration charges, during the trial in Cedar Rapids prosecutors focused instead on financial abuses when he was in charge of the Agriprocessors slaughterhouse in Postville, Iowa.
The sentence, two years more than prosecutors had requested, was unusually high in the recent history of financial crimes — longer than the term for Jeffrey K. Skilling, the former chief executive of Enron, and L. Dennis Kozlowski, the former chief executive of Tyco.
Lawyers for Mr. Rubashkin said they would appeal the decision, challenging the interpretation of federal sentencing guidelines by Judge Linda R. Reade. The appeal would expand the controversy surrounding the case, which has already included six former United States attorneys general writing to the judge to assail the prosecutors’ logic in seeking a term that could amount to a life sentence.
The sentence is also likely to deepen the belief among some Orthodox Jewish leaders, who have sustained an international campaign on Mr. Rubashkin’s behalf, that he was unfairly tried.
In an unusual procedure, Judge Reade, of the Northern District of Iowa, released a 52-page memorandum on Monday, a day before the scheduled sentencing hearing, in which she explained her decision. She will formally impose the sentence on Tuesday.
The raid on the Postville plant became an emblem of the Bush administration’s tough immigration enforcement strategy. It led to the bankruptcy of Agriprocessors, prison and deportation for hundreds of illegal immigrant workers, and a battered economy for the northeast Iowa town.
Mr. Rubashkin was convicted in November in a federal trial of 86 counts of financial fraud for his mishandling of a revolving loan from First Bank Business Capital of St. Louis, among other loans. After that conviction, prosecutors dismissed separate federal immigration charges.
Judge Reade noted that Mr. Rubashkin had misled the bank repeatedly about the finances of Agriprocessors, ordering employees to create fake invoices and moving cash secretly among different accounts, including some designated for religious purposes. The maneuvers caused a loss to the bank of $26 million, the judge found.
In one episode, Judge Reade wrote, Mr. Rubashkin lent $4,500 to illegal immigrants working in the plant so they could buy new fake identity documents, after immigration authorities had questioned the validity of their original hiring documents.
Judge Reade rejected a defense argument that Mr. Rubashkin was not motivated by greed, but was trying out of loyalty and religious faith to sustain a business owned by his father, Aaron Rubashkin. At the time of the raid, Agriprocessors was the largest kosher beef producer in the country.
“No matter defendant’s motive,” Judge Reade wrote, “he defrauded the victim banks out of millions of dollars.” She also sentenced Mr. Rubashkin to pay almost $27 million in restitution to the institutions.
“There was no bank robbery, he never intended to cheat or steal from anyone,” said Guy Cook, Mr. Rubashkin’s defense lawyer. Mr. Cook said the term was “essentially a life sentence” for Mr. Rubashkin, who is 51, and was especially difficult for Mr. Rubashkin’s 10 children, one of whom is autistic.
Mr. Cook said Mr. Rubashkin, who was informed of the sentence Monday morning in a county jail, had taken the news calmly. “He understands that ultimately what happens to him is in God’s hands,” Mr. Cook said.
Some Jewish leaders were not calm.
“Our community will react just as I have, with shock and disgust,” said Rabbi Pesach Lerner, executive vice president of the National Council of Young Israel, who has organized support for Mr. Rubashkin among Orthodox Jews. Rabbi Lerner said he would try to raise an outcry to bring attention to the appeal.
In a separate state trial in Iowa, Mr. Rubashkin was acquitted earlier this month of all charges that he knowingly employed under-age workers at the Agriprocessors plant.
While state prosecutors were not able to convince the jury that Mr. Rubashkin was personally aware of minors in the plant, the trial evidence showed that at least 29 immigrants under 18 were employed on Agriprocessors’ packing lines, some working night shifts and wielding sharp knives.
The company itself pleaded guilty at the outset of the trial to multiple charges of abuse of under-age laborers. Because Agriprocessors is bankrupt, prosecutors said they would not be able to collect any fine.
Last year, responding to the Agriprocessors events, the Iowa state legislature passed a law making it easier to convict employers who hire child laborers and increasing penalties.
Nearly 400 immigrants who worked in the plant, most from Guatemala, served federal prison sentences of up to five months for identity theft and were deported.
But some of the former workers will be allowed to remain in the United States. To date, 41 of the immigrants have been approved to receive a special visa, known as a U-visa, that is granted to victims of violent abuse, said Sonia Parras Konrad, a lawyer who represented those workers. The workers showed that they had been struck by managers or sexually assaulted while working at Agriprocessors, she said.
Ms. Parras praised Judge Reade’s sentence.
“Even though these labor practices never came out in court, the sentence sends a really good message that this kind of practice will not be tolerated,” she said.
The federal prosecutors had originally sought a life sentence for Mr. Rubashkin, but then revised their request to 25 years. Six former attorneys general, including Janet Reno and Edwin Meese III, wrote to Judge Reade in April arguing that a life sentence would be a severe misreading of the sentencing guidelines as applied to white-collar crimes.
Mr. Skilling was sentenced to 24 years, after the court found he caused losses at Enron of $80 million. Mr. Kozlowski, who was convicted of a $150 million fraud, was sentenced in state court to 8 1/3 to 25 years.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/22/us/22iowa.html
The New York Times
June 21, 2010
A federal judge in Iowa on Monday announced a prison sentence of 27 years on financial fraud charges for Sholom Rubashkin, the former manager of a kosher meatpacking plant where hundreds of illegal immigrant workers were arrested in a 2008 raid that garnered national attention.
Although the case against Mr. Rubashkin originally centered on immigration charges, during the trial in Cedar Rapids prosecutors focused instead on financial abuses when he was in charge of the Agriprocessors slaughterhouse in Postville, Iowa.
The sentence, two years more than prosecutors had requested, was unusually high in the recent history of financial crimes — longer than the term for Jeffrey K. Skilling, the former chief executive of Enron, and L. Dennis Kozlowski, the former chief executive of Tyco.
Lawyers for Mr. Rubashkin said they would appeal the decision, challenging the interpretation of federal sentencing guidelines by Judge Linda R. Reade. The appeal would expand the controversy surrounding the case, which has already included six former United States attorneys general writing to the judge to assail the prosecutors’ logic in seeking a term that could amount to a life sentence.
The sentence is also likely to deepen the belief among some Orthodox Jewish leaders, who have sustained an international campaign on Mr. Rubashkin’s behalf, that he was unfairly tried.
In an unusual procedure, Judge Reade, of the Northern District of Iowa, released a 52-page memorandum on Monday, a day before the scheduled sentencing hearing, in which she explained her decision. She will formally impose the sentence on Tuesday.
The raid on the Postville plant became an emblem of the Bush administration’s tough immigration enforcement strategy. It led to the bankruptcy of Agriprocessors, prison and deportation for hundreds of illegal immigrant workers, and a battered economy for the northeast Iowa town.
Mr. Rubashkin was convicted in November in a federal trial of 86 counts of financial fraud for his mishandling of a revolving loan from First Bank Business Capital of St. Louis, among other loans. After that conviction, prosecutors dismissed separate federal immigration charges.
Judge Reade noted that Mr. Rubashkin had misled the bank repeatedly about the finances of Agriprocessors, ordering employees to create fake invoices and moving cash secretly among different accounts, including some designated for religious purposes. The maneuvers caused a loss to the bank of $26 million, the judge found.
In one episode, Judge Reade wrote, Mr. Rubashkin lent $4,500 to illegal immigrants working in the plant so they could buy new fake identity documents, after immigration authorities had questioned the validity of their original hiring documents.
Judge Reade rejected a defense argument that Mr. Rubashkin was not motivated by greed, but was trying out of loyalty and religious faith to sustain a business owned by his father, Aaron Rubashkin. At the time of the raid, Agriprocessors was the largest kosher beef producer in the country.
“No matter defendant’s motive,” Judge Reade wrote, “he defrauded the victim banks out of millions of dollars.” She also sentenced Mr. Rubashkin to pay almost $27 million in restitution to the institutions.
“There was no bank robbery, he never intended to cheat or steal from anyone,” said Guy Cook, Mr. Rubashkin’s defense lawyer. Mr. Cook said the term was “essentially a life sentence” for Mr. Rubashkin, who is 51, and was especially difficult for Mr. Rubashkin’s 10 children, one of whom is autistic.
Mr. Cook said Mr. Rubashkin, who was informed of the sentence Monday morning in a county jail, had taken the news calmly. “He understands that ultimately what happens to him is in God’s hands,” Mr. Cook said.
Some Jewish leaders were not calm.
“Our community will react just as I have, with shock and disgust,” said Rabbi Pesach Lerner, executive vice president of the National Council of Young Israel, who has organized support for Mr. Rubashkin among Orthodox Jews. Rabbi Lerner said he would try to raise an outcry to bring attention to the appeal.
In a separate state trial in Iowa, Mr. Rubashkin was acquitted earlier this month of all charges that he knowingly employed under-age workers at the Agriprocessors plant.
While state prosecutors were not able to convince the jury that Mr. Rubashkin was personally aware of minors in the plant, the trial evidence showed that at least 29 immigrants under 18 were employed on Agriprocessors’ packing lines, some working night shifts and wielding sharp knives.
The company itself pleaded guilty at the outset of the trial to multiple charges of abuse of under-age laborers. Because Agriprocessors is bankrupt, prosecutors said they would not be able to collect any fine.
Last year, responding to the Agriprocessors events, the Iowa state legislature passed a law making it easier to convict employers who hire child laborers and increasing penalties.
Nearly 400 immigrants who worked in the plant, most from Guatemala, served federal prison sentences of up to five months for identity theft and were deported.
But some of the former workers will be allowed to remain in the United States. To date, 41 of the immigrants have been approved to receive a special visa, known as a U-visa, that is granted to victims of violent abuse, said Sonia Parras Konrad, a lawyer who represented those workers. The workers showed that they had been struck by managers or sexually assaulted while working at Agriprocessors, she said.
Ms. Parras praised Judge Reade’s sentence.
“Even though these labor practices never came out in court, the sentence sends a really good message that this kind of practice will not be tolerated,” she said.
The federal prosecutors had originally sought a life sentence for Mr. Rubashkin, but then revised their request to 25 years. Six former attorneys general, including Janet Reno and Edwin Meese III, wrote to Judge Reade in April arguing that a life sentence would be a severe misreading of the sentencing guidelines as applied to white-collar crimes.
Mr. Skilling was sentenced to 24 years, after the court found he caused losses at Enron of $80 million. Mr. Kozlowski, who was convicted of a $150 million fraud, was sentenced in state court to 8 1/3 to 25 years.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/22/us/22iowa.html
Thursday, April 22, 2010
SoCal bistro charged with hiring illegal workers
By ELLIOT SPAGAT Associated Press Writer
San Jose Mercury News
04/22/2010
SAN DIEGO—Criminal charges against the owner of a popular catering company for hiring illegal immigrants show the perils that employers face when they ignore government notices that workers' names do not match their Social Security numbers.
The French Gourmet Inc., a San Diego institution known for its wedding cakes, received so-called "no-match" letters in 2005 and 2006 from the Social Security Administration.
Businesses have long complained that the letters lack guidance for employers, but immigration experts say the case underscores that they should be treated as a red flag. The owner and a manager pleaded not guilty Wednesday to illegal hiring.
"You shouldn't just do nothing," Carl Shusterman, a Los Angeles immigration attorney not involved in the case, said Thursday.
Shusterman advises employers to demand that workers clear up discrepancies or get fired. Some employees have legitimate explanations—a marriage or divorce, or an error on the government's part—but those who are in the country illegally usually disappear when confronted, he said.
It is rare for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to build cases against employers on no-match letters.
Josie Gonzalez, a Pasadena immigration attorney who is not involved in the case, said the government has used the letters as evidence in other cases. But the employer's response to the letters is much more critical, including whether employees were paid in cash or without a Social Security number after getting the letters, she said.
"Some employers take a more laissez-faire approach and leave it up to the employee to clear up the discrepancy," Gonzalez said. "Other employers are more proactive and demand that the employee clear it up in a given time frame or get fired."
According to the indictment, The French Gourmet began paying one employee in cash after he was flagged in a no-match letter and instructed him to get a new Social Security number. His paychecks resumed after he came up with another name and number.
A manager allegedly told another employee "to get a new identity" after he was named in a no-match letter.
The no-match letters became a flashpoint in the national immigration debate in 2007 when the Bush administration proposed that employers be required to fire immigrant workers whose names don't match. The policy failed to survive legal challenges from business and immigrant advocacy groups.
Eugene Iredale, an attorney for The French Gourmet and owner Michel Malecot, said the Social Security no-match letters are "extremely confusing" because they do not go beyond pointing out the discrepancy.
"You'd think it would say don't hire this person, fire this person," he said Wednesday. "All they're saying is, 'We don't have this person on file but we're not telling you what to do. You take whatever action you think is right.'"
Malecot, 58, and manager Richard Kauffmann, 57, are charged with conspiracy, harboring illegal aliens and false attestation.
http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_14935075?nclick_check=1
San Jose Mercury News
04/22/2010
SAN DIEGO—Criminal charges against the owner of a popular catering company for hiring illegal immigrants show the perils that employers face when they ignore government notices that workers' names do not match their Social Security numbers.
The French Gourmet Inc., a San Diego institution known for its wedding cakes, received so-called "no-match" letters in 2005 and 2006 from the Social Security Administration.
Businesses have long complained that the letters lack guidance for employers, but immigration experts say the case underscores that they should be treated as a red flag. The owner and a manager pleaded not guilty Wednesday to illegal hiring.
"You shouldn't just do nothing," Carl Shusterman, a Los Angeles immigration attorney not involved in the case, said Thursday.
Shusterman advises employers to demand that workers clear up discrepancies or get fired. Some employees have legitimate explanations—a marriage or divorce, or an error on the government's part—but those who are in the country illegally usually disappear when confronted, he said.
It is rare for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to build cases against employers on no-match letters.
Josie Gonzalez, a Pasadena immigration attorney who is not involved in the case, said the government has used the letters as evidence in other cases. But the employer's response to the letters is much more critical, including whether employees were paid in cash or without a Social Security number after getting the letters, she said.
"Some employers take a more laissez-faire approach and leave it up to the employee to clear up the discrepancy," Gonzalez said. "Other employers are more proactive and demand that the employee clear it up in a given time frame or get fired."
According to the indictment, The French Gourmet began paying one employee in cash after he was flagged in a no-match letter and instructed him to get a new Social Security number. His paychecks resumed after he came up with another name and number.
A manager allegedly told another employee "to get a new identity" after he was named in a no-match letter.
The no-match letters became a flashpoint in the national immigration debate in 2007 when the Bush administration proposed that employers be required to fire immigrant workers whose names don't match. The policy failed to survive legal challenges from business and immigrant advocacy groups.
Eugene Iredale, an attorney for The French Gourmet and owner Michel Malecot, said the Social Security no-match letters are "extremely confusing" because they do not go beyond pointing out the discrepancy.
"You'd think it would say don't hire this person, fire this person," he said Wednesday. "All they're saying is, 'We don't have this person on file but we're not telling you what to do. You take whatever action you think is right.'"
Malecot, 58, and manager Richard Kauffmann, 57, are charged with conspiracy, harboring illegal aliens and false attestation.
http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_14935075?nclick_check=1
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Ind. restaurant owner admits illegal hiring
Ind. restaurant owner admits illegal hiring
The Associated Press
04/21/2010
SOUTH BEND, Ind.—A northern Indiana restaurant owner who employed four Mexican immigrants killed in a 2006 house fire has pleaded guilty to federal charges of concealing illegal immigrants.
Zhi Jian Jiang, 40, of Sacramento, Calif., faces up to three years in prison under a plea agreement with prosecutors. His sentencing was scheduled for July 12.
Jiang pleaded guilty this week in U.S. District Court in South Bend to charges that he hired illegal immigrants from Mexico. None of the charges is related to the Aug. 13, 2006, fire or the deaths.
The blaze broke out around 3:30 a.m. inside a Michigan City house that was near the Fortune House Chinese restaurant where the men worked.
Investigators found mattresses inside closets of the two-story home, and there appeared to be makeshift rooms with spots for about 12 to 15 people to sleep. Authorities aren't sure how many people were in the house when the fire broke out. Witnesses reported seeing some people leave the house.
Officials treated the fire as suspicious after a dog trained to sniff accelerants detected what could have been combustible liquids, but there was no record of any charges being filed. Investigators determined the fire began on the back porch.
No smoke detectors were found in the house.
The victims were identified as Felipe Bustamante Salgoto, 31; Roberto Jiamez Melquiadez, 26; Metodio Reyes Aparicio, 23; and Azael Jiminez Martinez, 23.
http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_14939462
The Associated Press
04/21/2010
SOUTH BEND, Ind.—A northern Indiana restaurant owner who employed four Mexican immigrants killed in a 2006 house fire has pleaded guilty to federal charges of concealing illegal immigrants.
Zhi Jian Jiang, 40, of Sacramento, Calif., faces up to three years in prison under a plea agreement with prosecutors. His sentencing was scheduled for July 12.
Jiang pleaded guilty this week in U.S. District Court in South Bend to charges that he hired illegal immigrants from Mexico. None of the charges is related to the Aug. 13, 2006, fire or the deaths.
The blaze broke out around 3:30 a.m. inside a Michigan City house that was near the Fortune House Chinese restaurant where the men worked.
Investigators found mattresses inside closets of the two-story home, and there appeared to be makeshift rooms with spots for about 12 to 15 people to sleep. Authorities aren't sure how many people were in the house when the fire broke out. Witnesses reported seeing some people leave the house.
Officials treated the fire as suspicious after a dog trained to sniff accelerants detected what could have been combustible liquids, but there was no record of any charges being filed. Investigators determined the fire began on the back porch.
No smoke detectors were found in the house.
The victims were identified as Felipe Bustamante Salgoto, 31; Roberto Jiamez Melquiadez, 26; Metodio Reyes Aparicio, 23; and Azael Jiminez Martinez, 23.
http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_14939462
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Rabbinical Leaders Shocked At Life Sentence Request For Rubashkin
Yeshiva World News
April 13, 2010
American Jewish leaders are expressing shock and outrage at the federal government’s recommendation that Sholom Rubashkin be sentenced to life in prison for his role as an executive with the Agriprocessors kosher meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa. It is the latest example of a prosecution that has repeatedly targeted Rubashkin for unfair treatment compared to others who have been accused of employing illegal immigrants or compromising the security of a bank loan.
Supporters of Sholom Rubashkin are being urged to sign an online petition at the “Justice for Sholom Mordechai Rubashkin” Web page at http://justiceforsholom.org and call or e-mail Department of Justice Office of Intergovernmental and Public Liaison (202-514-3465 ; oipl@usdoj.gov and cc pr@justiceforsholom.org), to protest the recommendations of life in prison for Sholom Rubashkin.
Those interested in assisting the “Equal Justice for Sholom Rubashkin” campaign, or in receiving call to action alerts should e-mail their contact info to info@justiceforsholom.org, or text message ICARE to 347-948-JUST (5878).
Jewish rabbinic leaders have signed a proclamation, urging their Jewish brethren to contact the Justice Department on Rubashkin’s behalf, calling it a “sacred obligation of every individual to participate in this mitzvah.”
The sentencing recommendation submitted by prosecutors to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Iowa is inconsistent with sentencing of other corporate executives convicted in comparable cases. For example, Mark Turkcan, an official First Bank, was recently convicted of bank fraud involving a loss of approximately $35 million, and was sentenced to one year and one day in prison. And Cathy Gieseker was sentenced to nine years in prison for bilking 179 farmers out of more than $27 million. Her motive, unlike Rubashkin and Turkcan, was greed.
Rubashkin was originally indicted for employing illegal immigrants, an offense that has been punished with probation or a short prison term. After seven superseding indictments, prosecutors chose to proceed to trial on alleged bank fraud charges in an effort to increase Rubashkin’s punishment, even though interest was paid on all of the money drawn by the loan and the bank has acknowledged it received approximately $21 million in profit from the interest payments.
The bank loan was not paid in full because of the government’s raid on Agriprocessors, which caused the company to declare bankruptcy. The bank “called” the loan when Agriprocessors could not continue to make its payments. The May 2008 raid included a military style raid and more than 600 federal agents. It was widely criticized for the extreme tactics utilized by prosecutors and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The raid destroyed the company and had disastrous lasting effects on the community of Postville and the kosher meat industry.
Prosecutors and the U.S. Probation Office have calculated the total offense committed by Rubashkin at level 45 under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines. Because the federal Sentencing Table caps at level 43, the Probation Office has calculated the total offense at level 43. An offense level of 43 is punished with a life sentence under the sentencing guidelines, which the Supreme Court held as no longer mandatory.
Rubashkin’s attorneys have asked the court to impose a sentence no greater than 72 months, noting his positive history and character, his extraordinary family circumstances, and the arbitrary nature of the now-advisory guidelines used by prosecutors. They emphasize that Rubashkin’s conduct was not done for personal gain, that he did not intend any loss to the bank, and that a 72-month sentence would allow the Bureau of Prisons to place Rubashkin in a facility with experience in effectively and humanely incarcerating observant Jewish inmates.
In Rubashkin’s bank-fraud trial, prosecutors were allowed to present inflammatory evidence regarding the employment of illegal workers, even though the judge had previously ruled that such evidence would prejudice the jury and had severed the immigration and bank fraud charges for that reason. The charges regarding harboring illegal immigrants were eventually dropped.
Rubashkin supporters argue That prosecutors have subjected Rubashkin to more severe restrictions and potential punishment than other employers whose work premises were raided by ICE and who were found to have hired larger numbers of illegal workers. The country’s largest meatpacker, Swift & Company, was raided in six different states in December 2006, and almost 1,300 illegal immigrants were arrested. No corporate official of Swift & Company has been prosecuted. RCI, International, a restaurant janitorial service operating in 17 states, was raided in 63 locations in February 2007. Its owners, who paid their employees (all illegal immigrants) in cash, were found to have defrauded the United States of more than $18 million in taxes. Its chief operating officer was sentenced to 10 years in prison. The owner of a Massachusetts manufacturer of leather goods and handbags raided by ICE in March 2007, when 326 illegal immigrants were arrested, was sentenced to one year and one day in prison.
http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/General+News/53588/Rabbinical-Leaders-Shocked-At-Life-Sentence-Request-For-Rubashkin.html
April 13, 2010
American Jewish leaders are expressing shock and outrage at the federal government’s recommendation that Sholom Rubashkin be sentenced to life in prison for his role as an executive with the Agriprocessors kosher meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa. It is the latest example of a prosecution that has repeatedly targeted Rubashkin for unfair treatment compared to others who have been accused of employing illegal immigrants or compromising the security of a bank loan.
Supporters of Sholom Rubashkin are being urged to sign an online petition at the “Justice for Sholom Mordechai Rubashkin” Web page at http://justiceforsholom.org and call or e-mail Department of Justice Office of Intergovernmental and Public Liaison (202-514-3465 ; oipl@usdoj.gov and cc pr@justiceforsholom.org), to protest the recommendations of life in prison for Sholom Rubashkin.
Those interested in assisting the “Equal Justice for Sholom Rubashkin” campaign, or in receiving call to action alerts should e-mail their contact info to info@justiceforsholom.org, or text message ICARE to 347-948-JUST (5878).
Jewish rabbinic leaders have signed a proclamation, urging their Jewish brethren to contact the Justice Department on Rubashkin’s behalf, calling it a “sacred obligation of every individual to participate in this mitzvah.”
The sentencing recommendation submitted by prosecutors to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Iowa is inconsistent with sentencing of other corporate executives convicted in comparable cases. For example, Mark Turkcan, an official First Bank, was recently convicted of bank fraud involving a loss of approximately $35 million, and was sentenced to one year and one day in prison. And Cathy Gieseker was sentenced to nine years in prison for bilking 179 farmers out of more than $27 million. Her motive, unlike Rubashkin and Turkcan, was greed.
Rubashkin was originally indicted for employing illegal immigrants, an offense that has been punished with probation or a short prison term. After seven superseding indictments, prosecutors chose to proceed to trial on alleged bank fraud charges in an effort to increase Rubashkin’s punishment, even though interest was paid on all of the money drawn by the loan and the bank has acknowledged it received approximately $21 million in profit from the interest payments.
The bank loan was not paid in full because of the government’s raid on Agriprocessors, which caused the company to declare bankruptcy. The bank “called” the loan when Agriprocessors could not continue to make its payments. The May 2008 raid included a military style raid and more than 600 federal agents. It was widely criticized for the extreme tactics utilized by prosecutors and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The raid destroyed the company and had disastrous lasting effects on the community of Postville and the kosher meat industry.
Prosecutors and the U.S. Probation Office have calculated the total offense committed by Rubashkin at level 45 under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines. Because the federal Sentencing Table caps at level 43, the Probation Office has calculated the total offense at level 43. An offense level of 43 is punished with a life sentence under the sentencing guidelines, which the Supreme Court held as no longer mandatory.
Rubashkin’s attorneys have asked the court to impose a sentence no greater than 72 months, noting his positive history and character, his extraordinary family circumstances, and the arbitrary nature of the now-advisory guidelines used by prosecutors. They emphasize that Rubashkin’s conduct was not done for personal gain, that he did not intend any loss to the bank, and that a 72-month sentence would allow the Bureau of Prisons to place Rubashkin in a facility with experience in effectively and humanely incarcerating observant Jewish inmates.
In Rubashkin’s bank-fraud trial, prosecutors were allowed to present inflammatory evidence regarding the employment of illegal workers, even though the judge had previously ruled that such evidence would prejudice the jury and had severed the immigration and bank fraud charges for that reason. The charges regarding harboring illegal immigrants were eventually dropped.
Rubashkin supporters argue That prosecutors have subjected Rubashkin to more severe restrictions and potential punishment than other employers whose work premises were raided by ICE and who were found to have hired larger numbers of illegal workers. The country’s largest meatpacker, Swift & Company, was raided in six different states in December 2006, and almost 1,300 illegal immigrants were arrested. No corporate official of Swift & Company has been prosecuted. RCI, International, a restaurant janitorial service operating in 17 states, was raided in 63 locations in February 2007. Its owners, who paid their employees (all illegal immigrants) in cash, were found to have defrauded the United States of more than $18 million in taxes. Its chief operating officer was sentenced to 10 years in prison. The owner of a Massachusetts manufacturer of leather goods and handbags raided by ICE in March 2007, when 326 illegal immigrants were arrested, was sentenced to one year and one day in prison.
http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/General+News/53588/Rabbinical-Leaders-Shocked-At-Life-Sentence-Request-For-Rubashkin.html
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Former IFCO Managers Plead Guilty to Illegal Alien Conspiracy
By Chaille Brindley
MaterialsHandling.Net
4/4/2010
Two former IFCO employees recently pleaded guilty in federal court to criminal charges in connection with immigration raids conducted in 2006. William Hoskins, 33, and Tomas Soto Castillo, 56, both of Cincinnati, Ohio pled guilty to a felony conspiracy to harbor illegal aliens and to encourage and induce illegal aliens to remain in the United States. Soto Castillo also pled guilty to a felony conspiracy to knowingly hire illegal aliens.
Hoskins and Soto Castillo were former New Market Development managers for the Pallet Management Division of IFCO Systems North America. They pled guilty before Judge Lawrence Kahn in the U.S. District Court for Northern New York. Due to the time limitations before going to press, IFCO could not be reached for comment about the latest guilty pleas by former employees. Hoskins faces a potential sentence of up to ten years in prison while Soto Castillo could be imprisoned for up to five years. Both defendants face the possibility of a fine of up to $250,000.
On January 23, 2009, Hoskins, Soto Castillo and five IFCO executives were indicted by a grand jury in the Northern District of New York for immigration, tax and social security related felony offenses. Five IFCO executives are challenging the criminal charges against them. The trial was set for late April 2010. However, the defendants have requested a change of venue, which could delay the trial.
The five defendants challenging the charges against them are Haskell “Buddy” Ross of Lakeland, Fla. (Senior Vice President – Human Resources); Christopher Tiesman of Spring, Texas (Senior Vice President – Finance and Accounting); Charles Davidson of San Antonio, Texas (Vice President of New Market Development, formerly Director of New Market Development); Kenneth Gines Jr. of Spring, Texas (Controller – Pallet Services); and Wendy Mudra of Tampa, Fla. (Human Resources Manager).
The prosecution stems from the government’s investigation of illegal immigration and employment-related practices at IFCO’s pallet management service facilities. The investigation began following a tip to ICE in February 2005, that illegal alien laborers at the Albany IFCO plant were observed ripping up their W-2 forms.
On April 19, 2006, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, in concert with other federal and state authorities, conducted work site enforcement raids at over 40 IFCO pallet plants in 26 states. This action resulted in the detention of 1,181 illegal aliens working at those plants.
The United States Attorney’s Office has previously prosecuted several IFCO managers for criminal offenses associated with the employment of illegal alien workers at IFCO pallet plants. Including the pleas announced today, eleven IFCO managers have entered guilty pleas related to hiring illegals and other violation of U.S. immigration, tax and workplace law.
In December 2008, the United States government reached a record corporate settlement with IFCO, pursuant to which the company agreed to pay $20.7 million dollars in civil forfeitures and penalties over four years. The settlement amount included $2.6 million dollars in back pay and penalties relating to IFCO’s overtime violations with respect to 1,700 of its pallet workers. IFCO also agreed to pay $18.1 million in civil forfeitures that will be available to support future law enforcement activities. IFCO has been fully compliant with the settlement agreement to date.
IFCO’s agreement in essence shielded the company from prosecution and has allowed it to stay in business as long as the company agrees to follow U.S. laws as well as the letter of the agreement. Depending on what comes out at trial, IFCO or its senior executives could still face legal challenges. If new information emerges that indicate illegal actions were conducted outside the scope of the corporate settlement, the Department of Justice could always re-open its investigation into the company as a whole or senior management.
The IFCO raids alarmed the pallet industry back in 2006 because one of its largest companies became the poster child for aggressive enforcement of U.S. immigration and labor laws. Government analysis of IFCO’s payroll information suggests that as many as 6,000 illegal aliens worked at IFCO pallet plants from 2003 to April 2006. Since then, IFCO has worked to become compliant, according to the Department of Justice in its recent statement. Other pallet companies have worked to verify the legal work status of their employees as well.
http://www.materialshandling.net/articledatabase/view.asp?articleID=3088
MaterialsHandling.Net
4/4/2010
Two former IFCO employees recently pleaded guilty in federal court to criminal charges in connection with immigration raids conducted in 2006. William Hoskins, 33, and Tomas Soto Castillo, 56, both of Cincinnati, Ohio pled guilty to a felony conspiracy to harbor illegal aliens and to encourage and induce illegal aliens to remain in the United States. Soto Castillo also pled guilty to a felony conspiracy to knowingly hire illegal aliens.
Hoskins and Soto Castillo were former New Market Development managers for the Pallet Management Division of IFCO Systems North America. They pled guilty before Judge Lawrence Kahn in the U.S. District Court for Northern New York. Due to the time limitations before going to press, IFCO could not be reached for comment about the latest guilty pleas by former employees. Hoskins faces a potential sentence of up to ten years in prison while Soto Castillo could be imprisoned for up to five years. Both defendants face the possibility of a fine of up to $250,000.
On January 23, 2009, Hoskins, Soto Castillo and five IFCO executives were indicted by a grand jury in the Northern District of New York for immigration, tax and social security related felony offenses. Five IFCO executives are challenging the criminal charges against them. The trial was set for late April 2010. However, the defendants have requested a change of venue, which could delay the trial.
The five defendants challenging the charges against them are Haskell “Buddy” Ross of Lakeland, Fla. (Senior Vice President – Human Resources); Christopher Tiesman of Spring, Texas (Senior Vice President – Finance and Accounting); Charles Davidson of San Antonio, Texas (Vice President of New Market Development, formerly Director of New Market Development); Kenneth Gines Jr. of Spring, Texas (Controller – Pallet Services); and Wendy Mudra of Tampa, Fla. (Human Resources Manager).
The prosecution stems from the government’s investigation of illegal immigration and employment-related practices at IFCO’s pallet management service facilities. The investigation began following a tip to ICE in February 2005, that illegal alien laborers at the Albany IFCO plant were observed ripping up their W-2 forms.
On April 19, 2006, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, in concert with other federal and state authorities, conducted work site enforcement raids at over 40 IFCO pallet plants in 26 states. This action resulted in the detention of 1,181 illegal aliens working at those plants.
The United States Attorney’s Office has previously prosecuted several IFCO managers for criminal offenses associated with the employment of illegal alien workers at IFCO pallet plants. Including the pleas announced today, eleven IFCO managers have entered guilty pleas related to hiring illegals and other violation of U.S. immigration, tax and workplace law.
In December 2008, the United States government reached a record corporate settlement with IFCO, pursuant to which the company agreed to pay $20.7 million dollars in civil forfeitures and penalties over four years. The settlement amount included $2.6 million dollars in back pay and penalties relating to IFCO’s overtime violations with respect to 1,700 of its pallet workers. IFCO also agreed to pay $18.1 million in civil forfeitures that will be available to support future law enforcement activities. IFCO has been fully compliant with the settlement agreement to date.
IFCO’s agreement in essence shielded the company from prosecution and has allowed it to stay in business as long as the company agrees to follow U.S. laws as well as the letter of the agreement. Depending on what comes out at trial, IFCO or its senior executives could still face legal challenges. If new information emerges that indicate illegal actions were conducted outside the scope of the corporate settlement, the Department of Justice could always re-open its investigation into the company as a whole or senior management.
The IFCO raids alarmed the pallet industry back in 2006 because one of its largest companies became the poster child for aggressive enforcement of U.S. immigration and labor laws. Government analysis of IFCO’s payroll information suggests that as many as 6,000 illegal aliens worked at IFCO pallet plants from 2003 to April 2006. Since then, IFCO has worked to become compliant, according to the Department of Justice in its recent statement. Other pallet companies have worked to verify the legal work status of their employees as well.
http://www.materialshandling.net/articledatabase/view.asp?articleID=3088
Friday, February 19, 2010
Rubashkin bail appeal denied, brother-in-law arrested
By Lynda Waddington
The Iowa Independent
2/19/10
The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals declined to act on bail release petitions from Sholom Rubashkin, former day-to-day manager at a now defunct Iowa meatpacking company who was convicted on numerous charges of financial fraud last fall.
The Agriprocessors plant, which was sold through bankruptcy proceedings and now operates under new ownership as AgriStar, was the site of a massive immigration raid in May 2008. Nearly 400 workers, or roughly half of the plant’s workforce, was taken into custody by federal authorities. Within days 76 percent of those detained and charged criminally accepted plea agreements, most being sentenced to five months in federal prison prior to their deportation.
Sholom Rubashkin, the son of Agriprocessors’ founder A. Aaron Rubashkin, was instrumental in daily plant operations, which were shared with is brother, Tzvi “Heshy” Rubashkin, who has not faced criminal charges. Prior to the raid, Agriprocessors was one of the nation’s leading suppliers of kosher meat. After the raid, the company quickly deteriorated.
Sholom was charged with numerous financial fraud and immigration-related offenses, the government electing to first prosecute on the fraud violations. When Sholom was convicted in November of 86 counts related to those violations, the government agreed to table the additional immigration-related offenses.
Since his conviction, Sholom has been held in federal custody, pending sentencing. Members of the Ultra-Orthodox Jewish community to which the Rubashkins belong, have made numerous pleas on his behalf for bail — all to no avail. The sentencing phase of Rubashkin’s case is expected to get underway next month, and Rubashkin faces a multitude of years in prison.
Yet even as the Rubashkin family prepares to perhaps close one very public criminal case, another has already begun. Milton Balkany, a brother-in-law to Sholom, was arrested this week in New York for allegedly scheming to extort a Connecticut hedge fund out of $4 million. He faces up to 20 years in prison if found guilty of the allegations.
In 2003 Balkany, who is also known as “the Brooklyn Bundler” for his knack for bundling political campaign contributions, was accused of misappropriating federal grant money intended for the Hebrew school. After he entered into a deferred agreement in 2004 regarding the missing funds, the criminal charges were dropped.
The latest allegations suggest that Balkany used his religious influence with a prison inmate to deter the inmate’s cooperation with police. The information known by the inmate, according to court documents, could have been used against a Connecticut hedge fund, which Balkany supposedly extorted for $4 million in exchange for keeping the inmate quiet. Prosecutors contend that Balkany told the hedge fund’s lawyers that, if they did not pay, he would help the inmate reduce his sentence by instructing him to speak openly with government authorities.
Balkany is currently released on $250,000 bond.
http://iowaindependent.com/28334/rubashkin-bail-appeal-denied-brother-in-law-arrested
The Iowa Independent
2/19/10
The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals declined to act on bail release petitions from Sholom Rubashkin, former day-to-day manager at a now defunct Iowa meatpacking company who was convicted on numerous charges of financial fraud last fall.
The Agriprocessors plant, which was sold through bankruptcy proceedings and now operates under new ownership as AgriStar, was the site of a massive immigration raid in May 2008. Nearly 400 workers, or roughly half of the plant’s workforce, was taken into custody by federal authorities. Within days 76 percent of those detained and charged criminally accepted plea agreements, most being sentenced to five months in federal prison prior to their deportation.
Sholom Rubashkin, the son of Agriprocessors’ founder A. Aaron Rubashkin, was instrumental in daily plant operations, which were shared with is brother, Tzvi “Heshy” Rubashkin, who has not faced criminal charges. Prior to the raid, Agriprocessors was one of the nation’s leading suppliers of kosher meat. After the raid, the company quickly deteriorated.
Sholom was charged with numerous financial fraud and immigration-related offenses, the government electing to first prosecute on the fraud violations. When Sholom was convicted in November of 86 counts related to those violations, the government agreed to table the additional immigration-related offenses.
Since his conviction, Sholom has been held in federal custody, pending sentencing. Members of the Ultra-Orthodox Jewish community to which the Rubashkins belong, have made numerous pleas on his behalf for bail — all to no avail. The sentencing phase of Rubashkin’s case is expected to get underway next month, and Rubashkin faces a multitude of years in prison.
Yet even as the Rubashkin family prepares to perhaps close one very public criminal case, another has already begun. Milton Balkany, a brother-in-law to Sholom, was arrested this week in New York for allegedly scheming to extort a Connecticut hedge fund out of $4 million. He faces up to 20 years in prison if found guilty of the allegations.
In 2003 Balkany, who is also known as “the Brooklyn Bundler” for his knack for bundling political campaign contributions, was accused of misappropriating federal grant money intended for the Hebrew school. After he entered into a deferred agreement in 2004 regarding the missing funds, the criminal charges were dropped.
The latest allegations suggest that Balkany used his religious influence with a prison inmate to deter the inmate’s cooperation with police. The information known by the inmate, according to court documents, could have been used against a Connecticut hedge fund, which Balkany supposedly extorted for $4 million in exchange for keeping the inmate quiet. Prosecutors contend that Balkany told the hedge fund’s lawyers that, if they did not pay, he would help the inmate reduce his sentence by instructing him to speak openly with government authorities.
Balkany is currently released on $250,000 bond.
http://iowaindependent.com/28334/rubashkin-bail-appeal-denied-brother-in-law-arrested
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Chicken processor fined for illegal workers
By Dan Horn
Enquirer Media (Cincinatti, OH)
February 12, 2010
Koch Foods Co. paid a $536,000 fine this week for violations discovered during an immigration raid almost three years ago at the company's Fairfield poultry processing plant.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials described the fine as a significant penalty that is justified by the myriad problems the agency found when it examined the company's hiring policies. Police and federal agents arrested 161 illegal immigrants during the August 2007 raid.
"This is one of the more significant fines for a case like this," said ICE spokesman Khaalid Walls. "It speaks to the level of violations we found."
The violations included a failure to complete required paperwork and to do a thorough check of job applicants' identification documents.
Koch officials said they cooperated with federal investigators and revamped their hiring practices to include an electronic system known as E-Verify, which checks prospective employees against a federal immigration database.
"We have been very proactive to make sure we are state-of-the-art in how we do hiring," said Mark Kaminsky, Koch's chief financial officer. "We feel very good about our policies and procedures. We feel we're cutting edge."
Kaminsky said the company, which employs about 500 people in Fairfield, has added training for managers on how to complete the paperwork required by immigration officials and has set up new procedures to avoid a repeat of the violations uncovered in 2007.
The company also has made changes on the management team that runs the Fairfield facility, although Kaminsky would not discuss how many people, if any, lost their jobs.
"We don't take any of this lightly," Kaminsky said. "We take it very seriously."
Brian Moskowitz, the agent in charge of ICE in Ohio and Michigan, said the crackdown on Koch Foods is part of a broader immigration enforcement effort that targets employers suspected of knowingly hiring illegal immigrants.
"Employers have a responsibility to hire men and women who are authorized to work in the United States," Moskowitz said in a statement Friday. "Fines are an important component of ensuring their compliance."
Federal prosecutors said last year they would not seek criminal charges against company officials based on the 2007 raid. Walls said Friday that has not changed and criminal charges are not expected.
The morning raid at Koch's plant followed a two-year investigation into the hiring practices of the Chicago-based company. At the time, immigration officials described the company as "an egregious violator" of U.S. immigration laws, which meant the company was suspected of knowingly hiring undocumented workers.
The raid was the largest in Greater Cincinnati in years and was among the largest in the country in 2007.
All of the arrested workers faced deportation proceedings and about 20 also were charged with forgery, tampering with records and identity fraud.
http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20100212/NEWS01/2130327/Chicken+processor+fined+for+illegal+workers%22%3E
Enquirer Media (Cincinatti, OH)
February 12, 2010
Koch Foods Co. paid a $536,000 fine this week for violations discovered during an immigration raid almost three years ago at the company's Fairfield poultry processing plant.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials described the fine as a significant penalty that is justified by the myriad problems the agency found when it examined the company's hiring policies. Police and federal agents arrested 161 illegal immigrants during the August 2007 raid.
"This is one of the more significant fines for a case like this," said ICE spokesman Khaalid Walls. "It speaks to the level of violations we found."
The violations included a failure to complete required paperwork and to do a thorough check of job applicants' identification documents.
Koch officials said they cooperated with federal investigators and revamped their hiring practices to include an electronic system known as E-Verify, which checks prospective employees against a federal immigration database.
"We have been very proactive to make sure we are state-of-the-art in how we do hiring," said Mark Kaminsky, Koch's chief financial officer. "We feel very good about our policies and procedures. We feel we're cutting edge."
Kaminsky said the company, which employs about 500 people in Fairfield, has added training for managers on how to complete the paperwork required by immigration officials and has set up new procedures to avoid a repeat of the violations uncovered in 2007.
The company also has made changes on the management team that runs the Fairfield facility, although Kaminsky would not discuss how many people, if any, lost their jobs.
"We don't take any of this lightly," Kaminsky said. "We take it very seriously."
Brian Moskowitz, the agent in charge of ICE in Ohio and Michigan, said the crackdown on Koch Foods is part of a broader immigration enforcement effort that targets employers suspected of knowingly hiring illegal immigrants.
"Employers have a responsibility to hire men and women who are authorized to work in the United States," Moskowitz said in a statement Friday. "Fines are an important component of ensuring their compliance."
Federal prosecutors said last year they would not seek criminal charges against company officials based on the 2007 raid. Walls said Friday that has not changed and criminal charges are not expected.
The morning raid at Koch's plant followed a two-year investigation into the hiring practices of the Chicago-based company. At the time, immigration officials described the company as "an egregious violator" of U.S. immigration laws, which meant the company was suspected of knowingly hiring undocumented workers.
The raid was the largest in Greater Cincinnati in years and was among the largest in the country in 2007.
All of the arrested workers faced deportation proceedings and about 20 also were charged with forgery, tampering with records and identity fraud.
http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20100212/NEWS01/2130327/Chicken+processor+fined+for+illegal+workers%22%3E
Friday, February 5, 2010
Bus companies accused of immigrant smuggling
By SUSAN CARROLL
THE HOUSTON CHRONICLE
Feb. 3, 2010
Federal agents have targeted more than a dozen local bus companies they say shuttled scores of illegal immigrants to destinations across the U.S., vowing to continue cracking down on smuggling organizations' transportation networks.
ICE Assistant Secretary John Morton was in Houston on Wednesday to announce results of a three-month operation focused on Houston- area smuggling by transportation companies, saying federal agents charged 22 suspects with conspiracy to transport illegal immigrants.
Federal agents executed nine search warrants Tuesday morning and targeted 14 businesses, including one on the city's southeast side that Morton said used armed guards and pit bulls to hold passengers in a stash house before they were smuggled on to their final destinations.
“Houston, unfortunately, has become a hub for these illegal transportation companies,” the ICE official said.
Morton called the operation “unprecedented,” saying that Immigration and Customs Enforcement is no longer targeting just one transportation company or arresting just one driver at a time.
Morton called the operation “unprecedented,” saying that Immigration and Customs Enforcement is no longer targeting just one transportation company or arresting just one driver at a time.
“We are taking on the whole industry,” he said.
He said the businesses investigated in the ICE operation were not legitimate transportation companies, but worked exclusively with smuggling organizations. The companies charged illegal immigrants “exorbitant” fees — up to $650 for a one-way bus ticket, he said, and transported illegal immigrants from Houston throughout the United States, to places such as Miami, Washington D.C., New Jersey and New York.
Morton said the companies avoided major highways that were likely to be patrolled by law enforcement, and traveled primarily at night. The companies paid commissions to smugglers, typically $200 to $300 each, to bring the smuggled immigrants to them, and would buy and trade passengers for fees, authorities said.
“These companies didn't treat their passengers as persons, but rather as commodities to be bought and sold,” Morton said.
Ed Gallagher, the deputy criminal chief for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Houston, described the crackdown on the transportation companies as a large-scale operation.
He said the 22 criminal defendants were charged with conspiracy to transport illegal immigrants, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
ICE officials also made 81 administrative arrests of suspected illegal immigrants during Tuesday's raids of the transportation businesses, which are located primarily in east and southeast Houston. The suspected illegal immigrants found at the companies were placed in deportation proceedings, federal officials said.
Kevin Lashus, a former assistant chief counsel for ICE who is now in private practice, said the shift toward targeting the smuggling transportation network — rather than a single driver or van load of illegal immigrants — is significant.
The Obama administration has stepped up inspections of companies' employment paperwork since last year, and now appears to be going after those involved in the logistics of smuggling, he said.
He said by targeting first the driver of a transportation company and then the owner for prosecution, investigators can move up the smuggling chain.
“It's a classic shakedown,” Lashus said. “But they're not just going after the employers — they're going after the transportation system, the underground trafficking routes that are used in Southern Texas and in Houston.”
Several of the companies raided on Tuesday appeared to be vacant on Wednesday. The sign outside one of the alleged stash houses on Harrisburg Boulevard advertised that the building is for lease.
Down the street, an alleged stash house near the railroad tracks was locked off behind a black wrought-iron fence.
A sign reading Bienvenidos — “Welcome” in Spanish — adorned an empty office in a converted trailer at a third targeted company.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6849917.html
THE HOUSTON CHRONICLE
Feb. 3, 2010
Federal agents have targeted more than a dozen local bus companies they say shuttled scores of illegal immigrants to destinations across the U.S., vowing to continue cracking down on smuggling organizations' transportation networks.
ICE Assistant Secretary John Morton was in Houston on Wednesday to announce results of a three-month operation focused on Houston- area smuggling by transportation companies, saying federal agents charged 22 suspects with conspiracy to transport illegal immigrants.
Federal agents executed nine search warrants Tuesday morning and targeted 14 businesses, including one on the city's southeast side that Morton said used armed guards and pit bulls to hold passengers in a stash house before they were smuggled on to their final destinations.
“Houston, unfortunately, has become a hub for these illegal transportation companies,” the ICE official said.
Morton called the operation “unprecedented,” saying that Immigration and Customs Enforcement is no longer targeting just one transportation company or arresting just one driver at a time.
Morton called the operation “unprecedented,” saying that Immigration and Customs Enforcement is no longer targeting just one transportation company or arresting just one driver at a time.
“We are taking on the whole industry,” he said.
He said the businesses investigated in the ICE operation were not legitimate transportation companies, but worked exclusively with smuggling organizations. The companies charged illegal immigrants “exorbitant” fees — up to $650 for a one-way bus ticket, he said, and transported illegal immigrants from Houston throughout the United States, to places such as Miami, Washington D.C., New Jersey and New York.
Morton said the companies avoided major highways that were likely to be patrolled by law enforcement, and traveled primarily at night. The companies paid commissions to smugglers, typically $200 to $300 each, to bring the smuggled immigrants to them, and would buy and trade passengers for fees, authorities said.
“These companies didn't treat their passengers as persons, but rather as commodities to be bought and sold,” Morton said.
Ed Gallagher, the deputy criminal chief for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Houston, described the crackdown on the transportation companies as a large-scale operation.
He said the 22 criminal defendants were charged with conspiracy to transport illegal immigrants, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
ICE officials also made 81 administrative arrests of suspected illegal immigrants during Tuesday's raids of the transportation businesses, which are located primarily in east and southeast Houston. The suspected illegal immigrants found at the companies were placed in deportation proceedings, federal officials said.
Kevin Lashus, a former assistant chief counsel for ICE who is now in private practice, said the shift toward targeting the smuggling transportation network — rather than a single driver or van load of illegal immigrants — is significant.
The Obama administration has stepped up inspections of companies' employment paperwork since last year, and now appears to be going after those involved in the logistics of smuggling, he said.
He said by targeting first the driver of a transportation company and then the owner for prosecution, investigators can move up the smuggling chain.
“It's a classic shakedown,” Lashus said. “But they're not just going after the employers — they're going after the transportation system, the underground trafficking routes that are used in Southern Texas and in Houston.”
Several of the companies raided on Tuesday appeared to be vacant on Wednesday. The sign outside one of the alleged stash houses on Harrisburg Boulevard advertised that the building is for lease.
Down the street, an alleged stash house near the railroad tracks was locked off behind a black wrought-iron fence.
A sign reading Bienvenidos — “Welcome” in Spanish — adorned an empty office in a converted trailer at a third targeted company.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6849917.html
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Idaho lawmakers pursue illegal immigrant employers
By Simmi Aujla
Associated Press Writer
Salt Lake Tribune
BOISE, Idaho: Idaho lawmakers could debate as many as three bills this session that would punish employers who hire illegal immigrants.
Two bills, including one introduced Friday by Sen. Mike Jorgenson, would punish employers who knowingly hire illegal workers with fines and suspension of licenses. A third, milder measure makes knowingly hiring an illegal immigrant a misdemeanor but doesn't touch their licenses.
Jorgenson, R-Hayden Lake, has introduced similar versions of his legislation the last three sessions, but they failed. He insists tackling the issue will pay off by discouraging illegal workers so much that they stay away.
"It creates enforcement by attrition," Jorgenson told the Senate State Affairs Committee. "When people know we have this kind of structure in place, they leave the state or they don't come."
Jorgenson's measure would require employers after Jan. 1, 2011, to confirm a worker's eligibility through the federal "E-Verify" system. Violators would face fines of up to $50 a day per worker, up to $50,000. His bill goes even further: Written driver's license tests would be given in English only -- no interpreters allowed.
On Friday, the Senate panel agreed to consider his bill at a full hearing, along with others that might come across their desks. Still, some members were at least initially skeptical.
Senate Majority Leader Bart Davis, R-Idaho Falls, raised concerns that Jorgenson's bill could burn up law enforcement agencies' resources. Senate Minority Leader Kate Kelly, D-Boise, fears far-reaching consequences for legal immigrants who would face additional hurdles to mundane tasks like driving a car.
"We have huge concerns about this," Kelly said.
Separately, Reps. Phil Hart, R-Athol, and Raul Labrador, R-Eagle, are also working on legislation. Details weren't available and it hasn't been introduced, but Labrador said it would discourage employers from hiring illegal aliens, including by revoking an offending business's license for up to one year.
"People will be more careful when hiring," said Labrador, an immigration lawyer running for Congress.
A third alternative would tighten existing laws governing employers who hire illegal immigrants.
Owners of companies who knowingly do so could face misdemeanor charges, be fined up to $50,000 and be jailed for two years but wouldn't be stripped of licenses under the measure sponsored by Sens. John McGee, R-Caldwell, and Curt McKenzie, R-Nampa, who chairs the State Affairs Committee.
A pro-business group that includes dairy and construction interests doesn't like any of the bills, but concedes McGee's bill would likely put the least burden on employers who often rely on immigrant laborers.
Revoking a business license would be bad for Idaho's already lagging recovery, said Brent Olmstead, a lobbyist for the Idaho Business Coalition for Immigration Reform. Its members like the Idaho Association of Commerce and Industry are pushing for comprehensive immigration reforms that include secure borders, but also increased quotas for guest workers.
Meanwhile, the Idaho Community Action Network, which represents migrant-worker interests, contends that only federal legislation can solve the problem. Leo Morales, a community organizer, said none of the Idaho measures address his group's concern that employers have inadequate training to determine just who has a fake ID or Social Security number.
"Employers are not immigration officials," Morales said.
http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_14301498
Associated Press Writer
Salt Lake Tribune
BOISE, Idaho: Idaho lawmakers could debate as many as three bills this session that would punish employers who hire illegal immigrants.
Two bills, including one introduced Friday by Sen. Mike Jorgenson, would punish employers who knowingly hire illegal workers with fines and suspension of licenses. A third, milder measure makes knowingly hiring an illegal immigrant a misdemeanor but doesn't touch their licenses.
Jorgenson, R-Hayden Lake, has introduced similar versions of his legislation the last three sessions, but they failed. He insists tackling the issue will pay off by discouraging illegal workers so much that they stay away.
"It creates enforcement by attrition," Jorgenson told the Senate State Affairs Committee. "When people know we have this kind of structure in place, they leave the state or they don't come."
Jorgenson's measure would require employers after Jan. 1, 2011, to confirm a worker's eligibility through the federal "E-Verify" system. Violators would face fines of up to $50 a day per worker, up to $50,000. His bill goes even further: Written driver's license tests would be given in English only -- no interpreters allowed.
On Friday, the Senate panel agreed to consider his bill at a full hearing, along with others that might come across their desks. Still, some members were at least initially skeptical.
Senate Majority Leader Bart Davis, R-Idaho Falls, raised concerns that Jorgenson's bill could burn up law enforcement agencies' resources. Senate Minority Leader Kate Kelly, D-Boise, fears far-reaching consequences for legal immigrants who would face additional hurdles to mundane tasks like driving a car.
"We have huge concerns about this," Kelly said.
Separately, Reps. Phil Hart, R-Athol, and Raul Labrador, R-Eagle, are also working on legislation. Details weren't available and it hasn't been introduced, but Labrador said it would discourage employers from hiring illegal aliens, including by revoking an offending business's license for up to one year.
"People will be more careful when hiring," said Labrador, an immigration lawyer running for Congress.
A third alternative would tighten existing laws governing employers who hire illegal immigrants.
Owners of companies who knowingly do so could face misdemeanor charges, be fined up to $50,000 and be jailed for two years but wouldn't be stripped of licenses under the measure sponsored by Sens. John McGee, R-Caldwell, and Curt McKenzie, R-Nampa, who chairs the State Affairs Committee.
A pro-business group that includes dairy and construction interests doesn't like any of the bills, but concedes McGee's bill would likely put the least burden on employers who often rely on immigrant laborers.
Revoking a business license would be bad for Idaho's already lagging recovery, said Brent Olmstead, a lobbyist for the Idaho Business Coalition for Immigration Reform. Its members like the Idaho Association of Commerce and Industry are pushing for comprehensive immigration reforms that include secure borders, but also increased quotas for guest workers.
Meanwhile, the Idaho Community Action Network, which represents migrant-worker interests, contends that only federal legislation can solve the problem. Leo Morales, a community organizer, said none of the Idaho measures address his group's concern that employers have inadequate training to determine just who has a fake ID or Social Security number.
"Employers are not immigration officials," Morales said.
http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_14301498
Monday, January 25, 2010
'08 raids lead to immigration charges
BY MATT MANNING
Port Clinton News Herald
January 22, 2010
TOLEDO -- The owner of eight Casa Fiesta restaurants faces charges stemming from July 2008 raids by federal agencies.
Ramon Ornelas, 42, of Norwalk, is charged by the U.S. Department of Justice with eight counts of harboring and concealing illegal aliens, three counts of mail fraud and seven counts of subscribing to a false tax return.
According to information filed Thursday by the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, Ornelas owned Casa Fiesta restaurants in Youngstown, Vermilion, Ashland, Norwalk, Fremont, Oberlin, Oregon and Sandusky.
"These criminal charges represent (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement)'s firm commitment to holding employers accountable for brazenly ignoring immigration laws as it relates to their work force," said John Morton, Department of Homeland Security assistant secretary for immigration and customs enforcement. "In order to create a culture of compliance among businesses, ICE will take the necessary actions, including leveling both criminal and civil fines against employers."
The Mexican restaurants were raided July 23, 2008, which resulted in the arrests of 58 undocumented Mexican employees.
Seven illegal employees were arrested at the Fremont restaurant, 2455 Hayes Ave.
Immigration agency spokes-man Khaalid Walls said all 58 arrested have either been deported or will be.
"Every case is unique," he said. "This is a significant case."
The information filed Thursday alleges Ornelas employed undocumented workers, failed to obtain proper immigration documents and sometimes provided them places to live.
According to the report, Ornelas routinely paid workers in cash without withholding FICA and Medicare taxes and submitted falsified documents to the state Department of Job and Family Services.
The Department of Justice report alleged Ornelas filed false tax forms, not claiming undocumented workers and underreporting taxes. The department also alleges he underreported the number of workers at the restaurant, resulting in underpaid taxes to the state for unemployment insurance.
Assistant U.S. Attorney David Bauer could not be reached for comment.
The Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the IRS Criminal Investigation Division and the U.S. Department of Labor and the Office of Inspector General were involved in the investigation.
http://www.portclintonnewsherald.com/article/20100122/NEWS01/1220302
Port Clinton News Herald
January 22, 2010
TOLEDO -- The owner of eight Casa Fiesta restaurants faces charges stemming from July 2008 raids by federal agencies.
Ramon Ornelas, 42, of Norwalk, is charged by the U.S. Department of Justice with eight counts of harboring and concealing illegal aliens, three counts of mail fraud and seven counts of subscribing to a false tax return.
According to information filed Thursday by the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, Ornelas owned Casa Fiesta restaurants in Youngstown, Vermilion, Ashland, Norwalk, Fremont, Oberlin, Oregon and Sandusky.
"These criminal charges represent (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement)'s firm commitment to holding employers accountable for brazenly ignoring immigration laws as it relates to their work force," said John Morton, Department of Homeland Security assistant secretary for immigration and customs enforcement. "In order to create a culture of compliance among businesses, ICE will take the necessary actions, including leveling both criminal and civil fines against employers."
The Mexican restaurants were raided July 23, 2008, which resulted in the arrests of 58 undocumented Mexican employees.
Seven illegal employees were arrested at the Fremont restaurant, 2455 Hayes Ave.
Immigration agency spokes-man Khaalid Walls said all 58 arrested have either been deported or will be.
"Every case is unique," he said. "This is a significant case."
The information filed Thursday alleges Ornelas employed undocumented workers, failed to obtain proper immigration documents and sometimes provided them places to live.
According to the report, Ornelas routinely paid workers in cash without withholding FICA and Medicare taxes and submitted falsified documents to the state Department of Job and Family Services.
The Department of Justice report alleged Ornelas filed false tax forms, not claiming undocumented workers and underreporting taxes. The department also alleges he underreported the number of workers at the restaurant, resulting in underpaid taxes to the state for unemployment insurance.
Assistant U.S. Attorney David Bauer could not be reached for comment.
The Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the IRS Criminal Investigation Division and the U.S. Department of Labor and the Office of Inspector General were involved in the investigation.
http://www.portclintonnewsherald.com/article/20100122/NEWS01/1220302
Sunday, January 17, 2010
One Agriprocessors supervisor to remain in jail, another likely heading there
By Lynda Waddington
The Iowa Independent
1/12/10
The day-to-day manager at a Postville meatpacking plant will stay in federal prison following a decision by U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals to deny him bail while he awaits sentencing. The plant’s operation manager also entered a guilty plea Monday to his role in aiding undocumented workers find work at the now defunct slaughterhouse.
Sholom M. Rubashkin, son of Agriprocessors founder A. Aaron Rubashkin, was found guilty in November 2009 on 86 charges of financial fraud and money laundering. His counsel had requested that he be released on bail pending formal sentencing on those charges; however, a panel of three judges from the St. Louis-based Appellate Court denied the motion late last week. An exact sentencing date for Rubashkin has not yet been set, but is anticipated to take place this spring.
Counsel for Rubashkin can continue to appeal the decision.
On Monday, former plant operations manager Brent Beebe admitted in a plea arrangement with federal prosecutors that he brokered deals between Rubashkin and undocumented workers, effectively providing the workers with falsified documents for a cost. The transaction of more than $4,000, according to court records, took place one week before a massive May 2008 immigration raid at the Postville facility.
Beebe remains free on bond, pending sentencing.
Since the raid several members of management at the plant have been probed by federal authorities, and many have been convicted of wrongdoing. The plant itself was sold through bankruptcy and now operates under new leadership as AgriStar. Some former members of plant management, including Rubashkin’s brother, Heshy Rubashkin, continue to provide services to the new plant owners, although the exact extent of their involvement remains unclear.
Due to the trial process, several undocumented workers were detained in Postville as possible key witnesses. Wearing ankle GPS tracking devices, some hoped only for deportation while others began their own legal battles to establish residency in the U.S. Just days following Christmas, most of those detainees were brought to Cedar Rapids where their ankle tracking devices were removed by court officials.
The Rubashkin family and friends, who have rallied around Sholom throughout the process, have hired a New York-based communications firm to represent the interests of an established defense fund. The company has reached out to members of the press and has began a presence on social networking sites.
http://iowaindependent.com/25521/one-agriprocessors-supervisor-to-remain-in-jail-another-likely-heading-there
The Iowa Independent
1/12/10
The day-to-day manager at a Postville meatpacking plant will stay in federal prison following a decision by U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals to deny him bail while he awaits sentencing. The plant’s operation manager also entered a guilty plea Monday to his role in aiding undocumented workers find work at the now defunct slaughterhouse.
Sholom M. Rubashkin, son of Agriprocessors founder A. Aaron Rubashkin, was found guilty in November 2009 on 86 charges of financial fraud and money laundering. His counsel had requested that he be released on bail pending formal sentencing on those charges; however, a panel of three judges from the St. Louis-based Appellate Court denied the motion late last week. An exact sentencing date for Rubashkin has not yet been set, but is anticipated to take place this spring.
Counsel for Rubashkin can continue to appeal the decision.
On Monday, former plant operations manager Brent Beebe admitted in a plea arrangement with federal prosecutors that he brokered deals between Rubashkin and undocumented workers, effectively providing the workers with falsified documents for a cost. The transaction of more than $4,000, according to court records, took place one week before a massive May 2008 immigration raid at the Postville facility.
Beebe remains free on bond, pending sentencing.
Since the raid several members of management at the plant have been probed by federal authorities, and many have been convicted of wrongdoing. The plant itself was sold through bankruptcy and now operates under new leadership as AgriStar. Some former members of plant management, including Rubashkin’s brother, Heshy Rubashkin, continue to provide services to the new plant owners, although the exact extent of their involvement remains unclear.
Due to the trial process, several undocumented workers were detained in Postville as possible key witnesses. Wearing ankle GPS tracking devices, some hoped only for deportation while others began their own legal battles to establish residency in the U.S. Just days following Christmas, most of those detainees were brought to Cedar Rapids where their ankle tracking devices were removed by court officials.
The Rubashkin family and friends, who have rallied around Sholom throughout the process, have hired a New York-based communications firm to represent the interests of an established defense fund. The company has reached out to members of the press and has began a presence on social networking sites.
http://iowaindependent.com/25521/one-agriprocessors-supervisor-to-remain-in-jail-another-likely-heading-there
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