Thread: 2 poultry plant workers sentenced to 2 years in prison

http://www.greenvilleonline.com/article ... 004/NEWS01

Two employees of the Columbia Farms poultry plant have been sentenced to two years in prison and another two employees have pleaded guilty as part of an extensive investigation into the company’s hiring practices, the state’s chief federal prosecutor said Wednesday.


The four employees were arrested over the summer, before federal agents stormed House of Raeford’s Columbia Farms plant earlier this month and detained 330 workers believed to be illegal immigrants working unlawfully, U.S. Attorney Walt Wilkins said.

U.S. District Judge Henry Herlong sentenced 32-year-old Juan Francisco Martinez-Olivares and 34-year-old Guadalupe Neri-Templos, both Mexican nationals, to two years each in federal prison on aggravated identity theft charges related to their employment at Columbia Farms, Wilkins said.

Each was subject to a two-year mandatory minimum sentence.

The two were found to have used alien registration cards and Social Security numbers that didn’t belong to them, court records show.

Two other Mexican nationals -- 28-year-old Nain Zarate-Camarero and 20-year-old Victor Cruz-Soto -- have pleaded guilty to using false Social Security numbers when applying for work at Columbia Farms, Wilkins said. Each faces a maximum of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

All four will be deported once they serve their sentences.

The four were arrested following an investigation that began last November into House of Raeford’s hiring practices, but four months before federal agents raided the chicken-processing plant during a morning shift change on Oct. 7 and detained 330 workers. Six of the workers were juveniles as young as age 15, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman said.

During the course of the investigation, agents reviewed 825 copies of I-9 forms that are used to verify a worker’s immigration status and of those, 94 percent were found to be falsified, Wilkins said. As a result of the investigation, a human resources manager at the plant has been indicted and accused of encouraging supervisors to falsify employment documents.

During the raid, agents seized 11 computers and 18 boxes of employment documents, court records show.

House of Raeford has said that it doesn’t knowingly hire illegal workers and that the company is cooperating in the government’s investigation.

Sometimes the wheels of justice turn slowly...but they DO turn on ocassion!

Related thread and moving from General Discussion to News since there is a news source.
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http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-135979-columbia.html+farms