Thread: friends say raided plant owner was hard-working immigrant

Colleagues, friends say raided plant owner was hard-working immigrant

By Brian Fraga
Standard-Times staff writer
March 26, 2007 6:00 AM
Contradiction and Francesco Insolia, the 50-year-old business owner at the center of the massive March 6 immigration raid in New Bedford's South End, suit each other well.

U.S. Attorney Michael Sullivan charges that Mr. Insolia, an immigrant from Sicily, made a fortune by exploiting hundreds of illegal immigrants who were willing to work for $7.25 an hour in brutal sweatshop conditions rather than live in abject poverty in Guatemala, Honduras or El Salvador.

Mr. Insolia's lawyer and colleagues paint him as a hard-working and amicable business man, as well as a regular church-goer who reached out to immigrants and was active in charities in Central America.

Public records and interviews with associates reveal only the opaque image of a man who kept a low profile, much like his company Michael Bianco Inc., which investigators said flew under the radar of Homeland Security, and managed to procure $230 million in Department of Defense contracts for military gear while simultaneously being cited for repeated immigration and Social Security Administration violations.

Many parts of Mr. Insolia's life remain a secret, as he refused multiple requests for an interview with The Standard-Times. Instead, he has relied on a public relations company, Rasky Baerlein Strategic Communications, to answer media questions and define his public image.



IMMIGRANT ROOTS
Mr. Insolia was born Sept. 11, 1956, and grew up in a farming family in Lentini, a city in southeast Sicily, said Alessandro Bocconcelli, a friend of Mr. Insolia's for more than 25 years.

"His parents were very hard-working people," Mr. Bocconcelli said. "They lived off the land."

Mr. Insolia attended a Merchant Marine institute in Italy and earned a marine captain's license. He was a ship's navigator and a sea captain for Carnival Cruise Lines during the late 1970s and early 1980s. He met his wife, Suzanne Thompson, who was a ship's nurse and Quincy resident, when they both worked for the cruise line.

Mr. Bocconcelli, who worked with Mr. Insolia as a ship officer for Carnival Cruise Lines, said Mr. Insolia spoke Spanish fluently and interacted well with the ship's crew members who were from Central America.

"He really got along with everybody," Mr. Bocconcelli said. "He's got a good sense of humor. I always thought him to be a funny guy. Everybody did. He never had any problems getting along with the foreign crew."

Mr. Insolia left Carnival Cruise Lines and returned to Italy, where he began an export business. In the mid-1980s, he and his wife moved to Pembroke, a quiet South Shore community, where they opened a local business selling imported Italian goods.

After immigrating to the United States, Mr. Insolia founded Michael Bianco Inc. in 1985 to produce fine leather goods. The company started out with 85 employees making handbags and purses for retailers, including Coach, Fossil, G.H. Bass and Mark Cross. He opened the plant in Lawrence and then moved in 1990 to a facility on Nash Road in New Bedford. He finally moved Michael Bianco to a facility on West Rodney French Boulevard in the city's South End in 2004, after the company secured an $83.6 million military contract.

In 1995, Mr. Insolia became president of the now defunct Hanover Holdings Inc. The company ran the Trattoria Il Panino Italian restaurant in Haverhill. The business was dissolved involuntarily in 1998 because it did not file an annual report with the Massachusetts Secretary of State.

One of Mr. Insolia's business partners at Hanover Holdings was William Deyesso, a Norwell businessman who owns several strip clubs in New England, including Centerfolds in Boston. Mr. Deyesso, who was convicted in 1996 for smuggling $30,000 in cash into the United States from his business in Russia, was listed as the registered agent for Hanover Holdings by the Massachusetts Secretary of State. Contacted by the Standard-Times for this story, Mr. Deyesso said he and Mr. Insolia were among five partners, but said he did not know Mr. Insolia well.

According to the Massachusetts Secretary of State, Mr. Insolia also incorporated a company called B Five in 1999 in Fall River, and then changed its name in 2002 to Front Line Defense.

An affidavit filed in U.S. District Court says this company "appears to exist solely for internal accounting purposes" for Michael Bianco.

At different times throughout the company's history, Mr. Insolia and his wife are listed as Front Line Defense's president. Mr. Insolia's public relations company said it is unclear why he was listed as president; Mr. Insolia intended to expand Michael Bianco's operations to fulfill its 2004-2006 government contracts, and wanted to include Front Line Defense in those plans, which are now on hold.

The government affidavit also says Mr. Insolia told an undercover agent that he owned a plant in Leon, Guanajuato, Mexico, but Mr. Insolia has denied this. He has said Michael Bianco serves as a contact agent for one company based in Mexico to facilitate orders for some U.S. customers.

MOVING ON UP

Mr. Insolia's earnings at Michael Bianco allowed him enough financial security to move his wife and two children in the early 1990s to a large Colonial house on Country Club Circle, an upper-middle class Pembroke residential subdivision created in the mid-1980s.

According to public property records, the Insolias' house, which has a farmer's porch, a garage and is situated on 1.05 acres of land, was built in 1987. The property is valued at $621,000 by the Pembroke Board of Assessors. According to the 2000 U.S. Census, the median income in the neighborhood is $56,538.

A BMW sports car and a Mercedes sport utility vehicle, both licensed to Bianco Inc., were recently parked in the home's driveway.

After Michael Bianco Inc.'s production expanded from its first military contract in 2001, Mr. Insolia and his wife purchased a single-family house in Lake Worth, Fla., in June 2003 for $180,000. The getaway home, which is less than 1,000 square feet, is up the street from the Lake Worth Municipal Golf Club and is within walking distance of the coast. The 2000 U.S. Census indicated the median household income in the Lake Worth neighborhood to be $78,764.

Last year, Mr. Insolia paid $6,493 in Florida property taxes and $6,112 in Massachusetts property taxes, according to public records in both states.

In 2004, Mr. Insolia made a $250 contribution to U.S. Rep. Barney Frank's campaign. Mr. Insolia later signed the petition to bring the issue of banning same-sex marriage in Massachusetts to a statewide vote, according to the Web site, KnowThyNeighbor.org.

Mr. Bocconcelli said Mr. Insolia and his wife regularly attend church and have been active in charitable works, especially in Panama.

"I really find it hard to believe what the government said about Francesco's work practices," Mr. Bocconcelli said. "I never saw that side of him. I never thought he was a greedy slave owner or something like that."



SWEATSHOP ALLEGATIONS
Mr. Insolia, who is charged with conspiring to hire and induce illegal immigrants to reside in the United States, and his attorney have denied the allegations that Michael Bianco employees were subject to harsh conditions. Those allegations include workers being docked $20 for talking at work and 15 minutes worth of pay for every minute they were late to work, and having only one roll of toilet paper per rest room stall per day.

Three Michael Bianco managers were arrested with Mr. Insolia in the March 6 raid. They face a maximum sentence of six months in prison and a $3,000 fine for each illegal immigrant they hired, and 10 years in prison or a $250,000 fine if convicted of conspiracy to encourage illegal aliens to reside in the United States.

Mr. Insolia is scheduled to appear April 6 in U.S. District Court in Boston. He was originally scheduled to appear tomorrow, but a motion filed March 20 by the U.S. Attorney's office offered to postpone the hearing to give all parties "time to review information and to discuss case-related issues."

A video released March 16 from the public relations company hired by Michael Bianco Inc. showed Mr. Insolia casually chatting in Portuguese with a female employee at her work station. Mr. Insolia told the independent TV film crew shooting the video that his company's philosophy has always been, "Take your time, do them right."

"Quality has always been our first and foremost. ... Nobody has ever been pushed to do production, production, production," Mr. Insolia said. "We always have been, 'Take your time, make a good product, and durable.'"

An affidavit filed in U.S. District Court says Mr. Insolia favored hiring illegal immigrants and his staff helped them to obtain false documentation. Mr. Insolia also allegedly imposed severe workplace conditions akin to a sweatshop.

Mr. Insolia's attorney, Frank Libby of Boston, said in a statement that the sweatshop allegations are "untrue and very damaging, yet continue to be repeated by people who have never seen the inside of a manufacturing facility, let alone this one."

Mr. Bocconcelli said he visited the factory last year with his family, and saw workers laughing and listening to Spanish songs on their personal radios.

"I saw people eating snacks and moving around," he said. "I exchanged a few words in Spanish. I didn't notice anything fishy there. It seemed like a normal working environment. It didn't look like the people were angry or mad at him."

But local illegal immigrants who were detained in the raid corroborated what the affidavit said. Lilo Mancia, an immigrant from Honduras, worked at the plant with his wife, brother and brother-in-law. He said he was mistreated.

"If you arrived one minute after 7 a.m., they did take $15 out of our pay," Mr. Mancia said. "They take $20 out of pay if you used toilet paper to dry your hands."

Mr. Mancia also recounted an incident when he cut his finger on the job. He said Mr. Insolia wanted to fire him because he said he was "playing Russian roulette" with his finger and the sewing machine.

Eli Alonzo, a married Honduran woman, said the company had "a lot of rules" and said money was taken out of her check for returning to work one minute after the lunch bell rang.

Mrs. Alonzo said Mr. Insolia would sometimes say hello to her and introduce himself as "the guy who signs the paychecks." But she said Mr. Insolia would open the door of the women's bathroom and threaten to suspend the women for two weeks with no pay if they were in the bathroom too long.

"There was no water to wash hands. No heat, it was shut off," she said. "Workers worked with sweaters and jackets. If they complained, the bosses would get mad and not pay you."



two sides of the story
The three-minute video released by Rasky Baerlein Strategic Communications is thus far the only inside look into the Michael Bianco factory. Mr. Insolia has barred the media from entering the factory and interviewing him or any of his workers.

The video shows seamstresses stitching camouflage backpacks and criticizing what has been said and written about their company. Dorothy Medeiros, identified in the video as a seamstress, said the allegations raised are "all lies."

After more than a week and a half of negative media stories highlighting the government's allegations against Michael Bianco, Mr. Insolia hired Rasky Baerlein, a high-profile public relations firm with an office in Washington, D.C., for its crisis management services.

In addition to crisis management, Rasky Baerlein's services include lobbying, representing grassroot initiatives as well as media and government relations. In November, Rasky Baerlein successfully represented the organized efforts of alcohol merchants to defeat the ballot question that would have allowed supermarkets to sell wine.

Rasky Baerlein has represented the Boston Red Sox, the Boston Bruins, Mastercard International, the American Council of Engineering Companies, Citizens Bank of Massachusetts and Constellation NewEnergy.



A COMMON ENEMY
Mr. Insolia is a villainous figure to both the immigrant advocates and the staunch opponents of illegal immigration currently embroiled in the tense national immigration debate.



"I would characterize him as the villain, not the victim," said Ali Noorani, executive director of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition. "The victims of the raid are the families who have been destroyed."

WBSM broadcaster Ken Pittman, a local radio talk show host who is against illegal immigration and calls for tougher border enforcement, said Mr. Insolia's character has "more than a few flaws" from reading the government's affidavits against him.

"If all that's true, then he's the biggest villain of all this," Mr. Pittman said. "I think it greatly harms the community and puts the area at risk."

Mr. Insolia, who is free on his own recognizance, shows up to work every day at his South End plant and is allowed to travel to Puerto Rico on business as hundreds of his former workers remain detained and face deportation hearings.

In a March 14 letter to the Standard-Times, Linda Rodriguez succinctly summarized the saga embroiling New Bedford. She wrote: "Clearly, Mr. Insolia saw an opportunity to make money, and no one can blame him for reaching for that brass ring. But by breaking the law and subsequently enabling others to break the law, he contributed to one of the most prevalent problems in this community: the integration of illegal immigrants into mainstream society."

Contact Brian Fraga

at bfraga@s-t.com

http://www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/pbc ... /703260350

Colleagues, friends say raided plant owner was hard-working immigrant

Many criminals are 'hard-working'. So what?

But local illegal immigrants who were detained in the raid corroborated what the affidavit said. Lilo Mancia, an immigrant from Honduras, worked at the plant with his wife, brother and brother-in-law. He said he was mistreated.

Turncoat of hearsay to State's evidence!

"If you arrived one minute after 7 a.m., they did take $15 out of our pay," Mr. Mancia said. "They take $20 out of pay if you used toilet paper to dry your hands."

Rightfully so, toilet paper is to be used for wiping, not drying hands! And after use, it is to be FLUSHED DOWN THE TOILET, not thrown into the waste basket (like some backward third world hovel without sanitation plants!).

OK, all kidding aside---looks like the two parties deserve each other---good riddens to both employer, and employees!