Thread: Hotel owner gets nearly two years for smuggling illegal alie

A serious judge give him some serious time. Perhaps we should email this to our elected reps and ask them again to sponsor the SAVE ACT ?

Good opportunity to post comments at this paper regarding the SAVE Act.


Hotel owner gets nearly two years for smuggling illegal aliensNov. 28, 2007

Man also faces deportation after serving sentence
By Kevin Murphy

MADISON, Wisconson - A Pleasant Prairie motel owner will spend nearly two years in prison for smuggling illegal aliens into the country to work in his motels.

Siddharta "Sam" Shah, 51, was sentenced Tuesday in federal court to 21 months in prison, placed on three years probation and fined $20,000.

Shah, a 15-year resident of the United States but a citizen of India, also faces deportation after serving his sentence.

Shah, who owns Super 8 motels in Pleasant Prairie and Wisconsin Dells, arranged to have four Guatemalans enter the United States illegally between 2005 and 2007 and required three aliens to work in Pleasant Prairie and one in Wisconsin Dells to pay off the cost of smuggling them to Wisconsin.

There he deprived them of "material necessities," said District Judge Barbara Crabb.

Authorities learned of the smuggling when Wisconsin Dells police found a Guatemalan woman living in a utility closet at Shah's motel. The three illegal aliens working in Pleasant Prairie had better accommodations, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Sinnott.

Shah came to the United States to further his medical career but when that didn't progress he bought two motels, Crabb said.

Shah previously pleaded guilty to harboring an illegal alien. On Tuesday, he apologized to the court and his family for "his mistake."

Crabb sentenced Shah at the top of the advisory guideline range, saying it was a relatively light punishment for the number of aliens involved. She stayed Shah's prison sentence until Jan. 3.

A co-defendant, Jignesh "Mark" Jagaria, 36, of the Wisconsin Dells, is scheduled to be sentenced on a similar charge later this year.


http://www.kenoshanews.com/article_comm ... um=2159616

this seems to be the mode of modern day slavery ... and we hear it all to often