Thread: TN-Woman charged in illegal immigrant hiring

Woman charged in illegal immigrant hiring





April 3, 2009 5:25 PM ET

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. - A Manchester woman has been charged with helping illegal immigrants get fake IDs and then hiring them at a cheese processing business where a group of former Mexican workers contends in a federal civil rights lawsuit that she tried to humiliate them by calling them "stupid Indians" and "donkeys."

Thirty-6-year-old Shanna Dee Ramirez of Manchester was released on bond in Chattanooga following her arrest Thursday on federal charges of conspiracy, aiding and abetting Social Security fraud, aiding and abetting aggravated identity theft and perjury. She could not be reached for comment.

Her attorney, federal defender Mary Ellen Coleman, could not be reached by telephone for comment.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Gary Humble declined comment Friday.

A group of Mexican workers last year sued Durrett Cheese Sales, Inc. of Manchester. The company filed for bankruptcy protection in 2007.

http://www.newschannel5.com/global/story.asp?s=10127667

Tenn. woman charged in illegal immigrant hiring

CHATTANOOGA (AP) -- A cheese processing plant supervisor already accused in a civil lawsuit of calling Mexican workers "stupid Indians" and "donkeys" has now been charged with helping illegal immigrants get fake IDs and recruiting them for jobs.

Shanna Dee Ramirez, 36, of Manchester was released on bond in Chattanooga following her arrest Wednesday on federal charges of conspiracy, aiding and abetting Social Security fraud, aiding and abetting aggravated identity theft and perjury. She could not be reached for comment.

U.S. Magistrate Bill Carter set a June 1 trial.

A message seeking comment was left with Ramirez's attorney, federal defender Mary Ellen Coleman.

The March 24 indictment says Ramirez, while working for Durrett Cheese Sales, helped provide false IDs and used them to hire Mexicans she knew were illegally in the United States.

The indictment does not say how many illegal immigrants were involved.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Gary Humble declined comment Friday and would not say if immigrants Ramirez was accused of recruiting are the same ones who filed the civil lawsuit last year in Nashville.

The suit names Durrett Cheese Sales, Inc., President Greg Durrett, and Coffee County law enforcement officials who arrested the workers when they demanded back wages.

The cheese processing operation has since changed owners. It filed for bankruptcy protection in August 2007.

Barbara Jean Moss, a Nashville attorney who represents the former business and its president in the lawsuit, did not return telephone messages seeking comment. A woman who answered the telephone Friday at Durrett Cheese in Manchester declined to give her name or to comment about the past owner.

The lawsuit says Ramirez, after recruiting the workers, was their supervisor and created a hostile and intimidating work environment by calling them "offensive and discriminatory names, such as stupid Indians and donkeys."

The suit, set for trial in 2010, says the workers were hired at hourly rates of $6 to $6.75 and were underpaid. In some cases workers went unpaid for a month, according to the suit.

Attorneys for the Montgomery, Ala.-based Southern Poverty Law Center filed the lawsuit. The declined comment about the charges against Ramirez.

The law center's Immigrant Justice Project director, Mary Bauer, previously said the suit was seeking damages for nine women and three men who were in the United States illegally when they were arrested in October 2007.

"They were out of status at the time this happened but that doesn't mean they should be arrested for asking to get paid," Bauer said at the time. "No matter what their status is, the employer hired them."

The suit contends the Mexican workers "peacefully assembled" during a morning break Oct. 22, 2007, to request overdue paychecks and the employer retaliated "by threatening and firing" them, then arranging their arrest and detention on false trespassing charges and their subsequent arrest by federal agents.

A statement from the law center said the trespassing charge was dropped the day after the arrests but the workers remained in the county jail until immigration agents took them to Nashville, "where they were interrogated."

There were mothers of young children, some of whom are disabled or very ill, among the workers and the women feared they would be deported without saying goodbye or arranging for their care, the statement said.

An attorney "eventually secured their release."
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