Thread: Nearly 70 enter guilty pleas; deals may include cooperation

Nearly 70 enter guilty pleas; deals may include cooperation in future ICE actions
The Des Moines Register • May 19, 2008

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Waterloo, Ia. — Nearly 70 workers arrested in last week’s Postville meatpacking raid pleaded guilty Monday to a less severe fraud charge in exchange for a 5-month jail sentence followed by an immediate plane ride out of the U.S.

The deal also opens the possibility that many of the workers could testify against their employer, Agriprocessors, Inc., should charges against managers arise. At least 20 more hearings were scheduled later Monday evening, after press time, to confirm similar plea bargains in U.S. District Court.


In exchange, prosecutors dropped more serious identity-theft charges which would have carried a mandatory 2-year minimum prison sentence.

“I know you came to this country to work hard and support your families,â€

U.S. District Judge Linda Reade sentenced Lastor-Gomez to five years of probation, ordered her removed from the U.S., and wished her luck.

Why didn't the judge ask her to pay the investigatory and court costs?

From the PETA videos I suspect the government has all the ammo it needs to go after the owners/managers of this company. They should not need any testimony from the IA's. Most of the IA's caught will lie to get U visas, so no plea deals with them!

In exchange, prosecutors dropped more serious identity-theft charges which would have carried a mandatory 2-year minimum prison sentence



This is just wrong.

IAs are fully aware of the fact that identity theft and documents fraud is a crime and they willfully engage in it anyway. Further, it doesn't stop at just doing this to obtain employment as an act of desperation to feed their families, but to commit numerous other crimes as well. These people are literally destroying the lives of innocent people, defrauding merchants, banks, credit card companies, state and government agencies, utility companies, and who knows what else.....all willfully and knowingly.

They deserve the harshest sentence available based upon the magnitude of their criminal acts. They do NOT deserve to be handed plea deals with the most serious of charges dropped and sent back to their home countries with minimal unsupervised probation.

I realize that detention space right now is at a minimum but we need to work on this and start throwing these people behind bars where they belong. They should also forefeit anything they have acquired as compensation to their victims.

Until they learn that the penalties are just not worth the risk, we're not going to effectively get a handle on this.

It's disgusting. Just deport them and prosecute the employer on the facts of their employment data. The proof of illegal hiring is in the documents. No valid documents, then they are illegal by definition. No one needed to testify in exchange for "cooperation" incentives.

Just get them out of here. That's what we want, isn't it? Ilegales be gone!

[quote]“I know you came to this country to work hard and support your families,â€