Thread: Ex-manager gets house arrest in Miss. mass raid

Ex-manager gets house arrest in Miss. mass raid
By HOLBROOK MOHR - Associated Press


HATTIESBURG, Miss. — The former human resources manager of a Mississippi company was sentenced Thursday to six months house arrest for hiring hundreds of illegal immigrants who were rounded up in the largest workplace immigration raid in U.S. history.

Jose Humberto Gonzalez pleaded guilty in December 2009 to conspiracy and admitted hiring hundreds of people he knew were in the country illegally to work at Howard Industries electrical transformer plant in Laurel. Immigration agents detained more than 600 illegal immigrants during a raid at the plant on Aug. 25, 2008.

Gonzalez is the only company official charged in the case, but the privately owned Howard pleaded guilty to conspiracy Feb. 24. It was fined $2.5 million.

U.S. District Judge Keith Starrett also sentenced Gonzalez to five years probation and fined him $4,000.

Starrett told Gonzalez that he's getting credit for the 15 months he spent waiting to be sentenced because the sentencing was delayed at the request of the prosecution due to its ongoing investigation. He was not jailed while he awaited sentencing.

Starrett said it was because Gonzalez had cooperated that "I think to incarcerate you would be a waste of resources."

In a lengthy statement in court, Gonzalez apologized to his family, friends and the court.

"I knew it was happening," Gonzalez said about the hiring of illegal immigrants at Howard, "but I didn't have the tools and courage to stand up and say 'these are illegals.'"

Most of the detained workers were deported, though some were convicted on identity theft charges for using fraudulent documents and providing fake papers to other workers.

Howard Industries has blamed Gonzalez for the situation. One of the company's attorneys has insisted in the past that nobody else knew hundreds of illegal immigrants were working there.

When it pleaded guilty, Howard Industries released a statement saying that illegal workers used fraudulent documents to "circumvent the numerous identification checks" the company used. But prosecutors said the company knowingly employed illegal immigrants, and even hired some of them after the Social Security Administration told the company that their Social Security numbers were not valid. Gonzalez admitted to similar allegations when he pleaded guilty.

Those detained in the raid came from countries including Brazil, El Salvador, Germany, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Panama and Peru.

Howard Industries makes dozens of products from electrical transformers to medical supplies. The plant that was raided is in Mississippi's Pine Belt region, known for commercial timber growth and chicken processing plants.

In 2002, Mississippi lawmakers approved a $31.5 million, taxpayer-backed incentive plan for the company to expand. The state required the company to create 2,000 new jobs - 700 by 2007 and another 1,300 by 2012.

Read more: http://www.thestate.com/2011/03/03/1721 ... z1FYnccNPc

In a lengthy statement in court, Gonzalez apologized to his family, friends and the court.

"I knew it was happening," Gonzalez said about the hiring of illegal immigrants at Howard, "but I didn't have the tools and courage to stand up and say 'these are illegals.'"

You didnt say nothing because you were to afraid to stab in the back your own kind of people, ethnically speaking

As for the Sentence:

What a JOKE ! ! !

talk about a slap in the face to all the legal americans who applied and were told no only to find out hispanics were given the advantages

Here is how the hometown Newspaper covered it

March 3, 2011
Gonzalez gets probation
HI exec will not spend any time in jail

By Charlotte Graham, countyreporter@laurelleadercall.com Laurel Leader-Call The Laurel Leader-Call Thu Mar 03, 2011, 10:29 AM CST

HATTIESBURG — The day of reckoning has finally arrived for the former Howard Industries Human Resources Manager who pled guilty to conspiracy in December 2009 and admitted he hired illegal immigrants at the Laurel-based business where more than 600 workers were detained in a 2008 raid.

Jose Humberto Gonzalez appeared before U. S. District Judge Keith Starrett at Thursday morning in U.S. District Court in Hattiesburg and was sentenced to five years probation and ordered to pay a $4,000 fine. Gonzalez’s sentencing had been delayed several times, since he entered his guilty plea.

The only company executive charged in the nation’s largest workplace raid on illegal immigrants, Gonzalez was initially indicted on 25 counts of conspiracy and employee verification fraud in May 2009, following the Aug. 25, 2008 raid at the Laurel plant and Ellisville headquarters of Howard Industries. The indictment was later modified to 12 counts.

In September 2009, Gonzalez pled not guilty to the 12 counts, but entered a guilty plea to conspiracy in December 2009 and faced only one count. Sentencing was then scheduled for March 2010. In addition to the current postponement, Gonzalez’s sentencing has been postponed in March, June and August. Gonzalez has been free on a $25,000 bond.

Today’s sentencing comes just one week after Howard Industries pled guilty to one count of conspiracy before Starrett. The company also agreed to pay a $2.5 million fine, an amount in excess of the fine amount the corporation ordinarily provided by the statute for the single count of conviction. Under the federal conspiracy statute, a corporation is ordinarily subject to a term of not less than one and not more than five years of probation, and a $500,000 fine.

http://leadercall.com/local/x415199034/ ... -probation

"I knew it was happening," Gonzalez said about the hiring of illegal immigrants at Howard, "but I didn't have the tools and courage to stand up and say 'these are illegals.'"

Gonzalez = LIAR!! You knew EXACTLY what you were doing! House arrest is much to lenient for you.

Originally Posted by jamesw62

Ex-manager gets house arrest in Miss. mass raid
By HOLBROOK MOHR - Associated Press


HATTIESBURG, Miss. — The former human resources manager of a Mississippi company was sentenced Thursday to six months house arrest for hiring hundreds of illegal immigrants who were rounded up in the largest workplace immigration raid in U.S. history.

OUTRAGEOUS and DISGRACEFUL!!!!