Thread: OH: No charges in 2007 raid at Koch Foods

No charges in 2007 raid at Koch Foods

By Dan Horn
August 27, 2009
Read Comments(39)

No managers or company officials at Koch Foods Co. will be prosecuted as a result of an immigration raid two years ago at the company’s poultry processing plant in Fairfield.

Federal prosecutors and a company lawyer confirmed this week that the criminal investigation into Koch and its managers is over and that no one would face charges.

The decision comes two years after federal and local law enforcement agencies raided Koch’s processing plant and vowed to pursue charges against anyone at Koch who turned a blind eye to immigration laws when they hired the 161 illegal immigrants arrested during the raid.

After the raid in August 2007, law enforcement officials said the illegal workers used fraudulent identification documents to get jobs at Koch and that the large number of arrests raised questions about whether the company bent or broke the rules.

Butler County Sheriff Rick Jones, an outspoken advocate for tougher immigration enforcement, warned businesses after the raid that “you can’t come here and commit a crime and go unscathed.â€

Koch Foods officials will not be prosecuted in 2007 immigration raid


By Michael D. Pitman
Updated 7:16 AM Friday, August 28, 2009

FAIRFIELD — No one at Koch Foods will be prosecuted for the August 2007 Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid where more than 160 people were arrested.

And Martin Pinales, an attorney for the Fairfield poultry processing plant, said no one should be prosecuted.

“When a good company like Koch, a viable company to the community providing lots of jobs and lots of taxes to the community, tries to do the right thing they get held up in governmental muckety-muck,â€

This is what I have been yelling about for years: the term knowingly hiring illegals. They can easily claim they are not document experts, and as far as discrimination, check everyone's documents, or use E-Verify if the business is conscientious enough to worry about cheap labor that is obviously foreign, and E-Verify everyone that applies.
Over 100 illegals found as workers and these guys get off scot-free! Does not sit well in my craw.