http://www.record-eagle.com/2006/sep/06gtresort.htm

09/06/2006
Feds want company's assets
By PATRICK SULLIVAN

psullivan@record-eagle.com

TRAVERSE CITY — Federal prosecutors want to seize real estate in Florida and California and nearly $600,000 in bank accounts from three people behind a company that allegedly supplied illegal immigrant labor to the Grand Traverse Resort & Spa.

Florida-based RCI Inc. is accused of supplying illegal immigrant labor without the knowledge of resort management.

In complaints for forfeiture of $581,111 from six bank accounts filed Aug. 24 in Grand Rapids, federal investigators accuse RCI of recruiting laborers from Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala to work at the resort, setting up the employees with phony immigration documents and paying them in cash.

In February, federal agents raided the resort and netted 20 undocumented, illegal workers.

RCI is owned by Richard Rosenbaum and Edward Scott Cunningham. It wired money to pay the workers to an employee in Traverse City, Santiago Echaniz, who would make withdrawals of under $10,000 from an account in order to avoid reporting requirements, according to prosecutors.

"RCI encouraged and induced aliens who were employees to reside illegally in the United States so that RCI could operate more profitably," assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Borgula wrote in a complaint to seize the money from the bank accounts. According to the civil complaint, companies across the country pay RCI over $11 million per year to supply labor, primarily for cleaning services.

In Aug. 29 filings in four separate forfeiture cases where prosecutors seek to seize over $2.1 million worth of real estate from Rosenbaum, Cunningham and RCI bookkeeper Christina Flocken, Borgula asked for a stay in the forfeiture proceedings while prosecutors build a criminal case.

"It is highly likely that the criminal investigation into the violations ... may result in criminal charges," Borgula wrote. "The United States anticipates that the investigation of this matter will be completed within six months."

A call Tuesday to Southfield attorney Jorin Rubin, who represents the three defendants, was not immediately returned.