Poultry Supervisors Plead Guilty in South Carolina Case
USAgNet - 08/20/2008

Seven former House of Raeford Farms poultry plant workers acknowleged they used fake IDs to work at the company's poultry plant in South Carolina. The men pleaded guilty to aggravated identity theft in federal court Tuesday, and each faces up to two years in prison before being deported back to Mexico, their homecountry. The former supervisors are Simon Gutierrez-Gomez, Federico Torres-Perez, Juan Ramon Macias-Rodriguez, Juan Juarez-Suarez, Gualadule Neri-Templos, Evaristo Merinos Vasquez and Juan Francisco Martinez-Olivarez.

In a February series about working conditions in the poultry industry, the Observer found that N.C.-based House of Raeford increasingly relied on Latino immigrants and that former supervisors said managers were well aware that undocumented immigrants worked for the company. According to the Charlotte Observer, of the 52 current and former Latino workers who spoke to the Observer for the series about their legal status, 42 said they were in the country illegally.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Lance Crick told the court that U.S. Immigration and Custom's Enforcement launched a work site investigation of the Greenville poultry plant late last year. ICE agents requested the employment elegibility forms of workers. Crick said all the defendents were line supervisers and were discovered to have "used an identification of another person" to work at the plant, either a real resident Alien number or Social Security Number.

Federal agents have arrested four other former Greenville plant workers on immigration violations. Their cases will be heard later this year. Among them is the case of Elaine Crump, the plant's human resources director, who was indicted on 20 felony counts charging that she instructed employees to use fraudulent employment eligibility forms.
http://www.wisconsinagconnection.com/st ... 48&yr=2008