Thread: Pilgrim's Pride workers jailed in fraud case

Pilgrim's Pride workers jailed in fraud case
No civil or criminal charges filed on company

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By RANDY ROSS

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Twenty-four people, including 21 employees of Pilgrim's Pride, have been arrested on ID fraud and immigration violation charges, according to U.S. Attorney John L. Ratcliffe.

"Pilgrim's Pride is cooperating fully with the government's investigation," said Ray Atkinson, the company's director of corporate communications.

No civil or criminal charges have been filed against the company. Assistant U.S. Attorney Alan Jackson said there is nothing in the public record to suggest Pilgrim's Pride was at fault.

The suspects were arrested Tuesday. Twenty-two were arrested in Titus County, and two were arrested in Camp County.

Nearly 5,000 people are employed at the company's Mount Pleasant and Pittsburg locations, Atkinson said.

The facilities use E-Verify, an employment eligibility program under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, to verify the authenticity of employee Social Security numbers and personal information. The program does not detect identity theft.

The U.S. Attorney's Office said Daniel Totosaus-Rodriguez and Marcos Garcia were selling false identification documents, including Social Security cards and birth certificates, used by illegal immigrants to assist in gaining employment. The men could be sentenced up to 15 years in prison.

Jose Luis Garcia was charged with re-entry into the country with false identification documents after having been denied admission in 2001. He could be sentenced to up to two years in prison.

Reyna Villarreal was charged with making a false statement. According to the complaint against her, she submitted a naturalization application form stating that she was a citizen of Mexico and certifying that she had never claimed to be a U.S. citizen, but she had previously indicated on an immigration form she was a U.S. citizen. She could face a sentence of up to five years in prison.

Twenty people were charged with using a false Social Security number, a charge that carries up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

They are: Maria Dominguez, Maria Vega-Cruz, Rosauro Moran-Rodriguez, Jose Ramirez, German Yepez-Guzman, Gamaniel Basaldue-Reyes, Rigoberto Canada-Lopez, Rigoberto Carmona-Ramirez, Cecilia Perez-Lazaro, Emilio Mejia-Angulo, Jose de Jesus Ramos-Castillo, Victor Martinez-Quinonez, Jose Arellano-Vasquez, Damacio Tomas-Quirino, Jose Martinez-Ramirez, Victor Perez-Sepulveda, Alejandro Claudio-Hernandez, Norma Mendoza-Baldobinos, Germahin Anguino and Silvestre Castro-Rodriguez.

http://www.news-journal.com/news/conten ... theft.html

If they don't lock down the border we will spend a lot of money getting them tried and deported and they will just come back. These illegals are clogging our systems because they are using the Bush revolving door.

AT least the company tried doing the right thing, using the E-Verify program. Have to give them credit for that. Nice to know it actually WORKS!

AMEN to that Paige.....I hope they do hard time and that way the news will get out and maybe some of their friends will go home.

" A charge that carries up to five years in jail and a $20,000 fine" That is not quite the same thing as Social Security totalization for illegals that the Amnesty supporters are trying to get.

The program does not detect identity theft.

Turn the programming over to qualified American programmers and it will flag multiple uses, use in multiple states, numbers belonging to those deceased, numbers belonging to those who have notified the authorities their number has been stolen for credit card scams, and numbers of those who are battling the IRS over a discrepancy due to identity theft.

Connect the data bases. It's not like the information has not been collected, it has.

These 24 are a drop in the bucket. I didn't have any idea they had 5,000 employees in that area, though. I knew there were a lot - but not that many.
Many of their workers, however, are here on some program through NAFTA, I think and are legal, but 24 is really not much.

But it makes for good PR for Pilgrim's - if you don't think about it -

It sounds like maybe someone has been calling ICE and this is a 'made for media' moment.

And Pilgrim's was totally innocent - they thought all those chicken pluckers were legal - honest!!

Every little bit helps, though.