UFCW Union Rep to Stand Trial!

Charges against union official upheld

A judge, however, orders prosecutors to give a list of names to a union official accused of shielding undocumented immigrants.

SHIRLEY RAGSDALE

A federal judge has refused to dismiss criminal charges against a union representative accused of protecting undocumented workers at the Marshalltown Swift meatpacking plant.

U.S. District Judge Ronald Longstaff, however, also ruled Friday that Braulio Pereyra-Gabino is entitled to know the names of workers that prosecutors believe he protected.

Longstaff gave prosecutors 10 days to produce the names of undocumented immigrants employed by Swift & Co. that the union official is accused of aiding.

Pereyra-Gabino, 58, of Marshalltown, was arrested July 10 by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents acting on a grand jury indictment.

Pereyra-Gabino, who was the vice president of Local 1149 of the United Food and Commercial Workers union, is accused of advising workers in the United States illegally of how to avoid detection and arrest; prosecutors say he did so in orientation speeches he gave to new Spanish-speaking employees.

An immigration agent recorded a version of the speech Aug. 22, 2006, according to court documents.

Pereyra-Gabino is charged with a single count of shielding from detection and attempting to shield from detection undocumented immigrants at the Marshalltown meatpacking plant from June 2003 until he was arrested.

At a Sept. 14 hearing, J. Keith Riggs of Des Moines, Pereyra-Gabino’s attorney, asked that the indictment be dismissed because it was too vague, failed to specify the date the crime occurred and failed to name the workers who benefited.

Longstaff ruled that the indictment was sufficient and declined to dismiss it.

The judge said, however, that the government must provide Pereyra-Gabino with the identities and number of workers he is charged with shielding so he can prepare an adequate defense and minimize the element of surprise at trial, according to court records.
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