Thread: Two charged with bringing immigrants to work at Dunkin' Donu

http://www.wtnh.com/Global/story.asp?S=4388720&nav=3YeX

(WTNH/AP, Jan. 20, 2006 Updated 5:59 PM ) _ The former owner of a chain of shoreline Dunkin Donuts has been arrested by federal authorities on illegal immigration charges.

The arrests comes after a Team 8 Investigation into whether Guilford resident Jose Calhelha was deliberately brining illegal aliens into the U.S. to work at his Dunkin Donuts stores.

Both Calhelha and his daughter Diana have been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of conspiring to bring illegal aliens into the country.

They were arraigned at US District Court in New Haven Friday afternoon and pleaded not guilty. A judge set bond for Jose Calhelha at three and a half million dollars.

A News Channel 8 investigation featured interviews with former Dunkin Donuts store managers who claim Calhelha recruited them from overseas with promises of big money and shortcuts in getting legal immigration status.

Calhelha owned stores in Branford, Westbrook, Derby, East Haven, and Old Saybrook. As a result of News Channel 8's story, Dunkin Donuts forced Calhelha to sell his stores.

U.S. Attorney Kevin O'Connor says the charges reveal a brazen disregard for U.S. immigration, employment and tax laws.

The aliens were from Portugal. Prosecutors say Calhelha placed ads in Portuguese newspapers. They say most of the aliens worked seven days and sometimes as many as 85 hours and earned about $250 dollars a week.

They were also required to do other work including landscaping and painting at stores and snow removal at Calhelha's home.

Originally Posted by had_enuf

http://www.wtnh.com/Global/story.asp?S=4388720&nav=3YeX

(WTNH/AP, Jan. 20, 2006 Updated 5:59 PM ) _ The former owner of a chain of shoreline Dunkin Donuts has been arrested by federal authorities on illegal immigration charges.

The arrests comes after a Team 8 Investigation into whether Guilford resident Jose Calhelha was deliberately brining illegal aliens into the U.S. to work at his Dunkin Donuts stores.

Both Calhelha and his daughter Diana have been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of conspiring to bring illegal aliens into the country.

They were arraigned at US District Court in New Haven Friday afternoon and pleaded not guilty. A judge set bond for Jose Calhelha at three and a half million dollars.

A News Channel 8 investigation featured interviews with former Dunkin Donuts store managers who claim Calhelha recruited them from overseas with promises of big money and shortcuts in getting legal immigration status.

Calhelha owned stores in Branford, Westbrook, Derby, East Haven, and Old Saybrook. As a result of News Channel 8's story, Dunkin Donuts forced Calhelha to sell his stores.

U.S. Attorney Kevin O'Connor says the charges reveal a brazen disregard for U.S. immigration, employment and tax laws.

The aliens were from Portugal. Prosecutors say Calhelha placed ads in Portuguese newspapers. They say most of the aliens worked seven days and sometimes as many as 85 hours and earned about $250 dollars a week.

They were also required to do other work including landscaping and painting at stores and snow removal at Calhelha's home.

Did any of these workers have TB? Where is the Health Dept on this issue?

http://www.courant.com/news/local/hc-ct ... ines-local

Feds Allege Illegal Immigration Scheme



By DAVID FUNKHOUSER
Courant Staff Writer

January 21 2006

NEW HAVEN -- A Guilford man and his daughter pleaded not guilty in federal court Friday to charges they imported illegal workers from Portugal for a string of Dunkin' Donut shops along the shoreline, a setup prosecutors allege made them a fortune on the backs of people coerced into working seven days a week for as little as $250.

Jose Calhelha, 46, of 8 Greenwood Lane, a native of Portugal who retains dual citizenship, sold the 10 franchises last summer, netting about $9 million. But he allegedly built his success by hiring and exploiting possibly hundreds of illegal immigrants, some of whom he enticed to move here from Portugal with a promise of the American dream.

A federal grand jury in Bridgeport on Thursday indicted Calhelha on seven counts, including conspiracy to encourage, harbor and transport aliens; illegally transporting and harboring aliens, and encouraging them to enter the U.S.; hiring undocumented aliens and document fraud.

His daughter, Diana, 22, a college student, was indicted on two counts, charged with helping her father transport the workers, manage their job duties and fill out the fraudulent forms.

The Calhelhas were released Friday after their lawyer, William Dow of New Haven, negotiated strict terms with Assistant U.S. Attorney Krishna R. Patel.

Jose Calhelha will turn over $1.5 million in a cash bond; the title to his Guilford home, on which there is no mortgage and which is worth $2 million or more; and the titles to his 11 cars, worth an estimated $350,000. He will not be allowed to travel outside the state except to Rhode Island and Massachusetts to visit lawyers and an accountant, and must give 24 hours' notice whenever he does so.

He also was ordered to have no contact with any employees of Dunkin' Donuts.

Patel told Judge Joan G. Margolis that Calhelha is a flight risk and a possible danger to the community because he has a history of intimidating his employees. She said Calhelha, who is no longer working in the U.S., has a home and family in Portugal and has traveled there seven times in the past year, usually with only a briefcase in hand.

His home in Guilford was for sale for a time last year. The massive brick mansion is situated in the woods behind an imposing entryway with stone walls and an iron gate, at the end of a cul-de-sac just north of Route 146.

Diana Calhelha was released on $100,000 bail and restricted to travel within New England, New York and New Jersey.

Both are scheduled to appear in court Feb. 28 for jury selection, though an extension to a later date is likely, Margolis said.

"The charges contained in this indictment reveal a brazen disregard for United States immigration, employment and tax laws," U.S. Attorney Kevin J. O'Connor said. He said that the investigation is ongoing and that "anyone who was making money off the backs of these illegal aliens" could be charged. He called the alleged scheme "a well-orchestrated plot to exploit the American dream."

The Calhelhas were arrested at their home Friday morning with the help of Guilford police after an investigation by the U.S. attorney's office and the federal immigration and customs enforcement branch of the Homeland Security Department.

The allegations first surfaced last May in a report by Alan Cohn of WTNH, Channel 8, who investigated after two former employees of Calhelha came forward to tell their story.

O'Connor said workers who came forward will be assisted with work permits and will be allowed to stay in the U.S. He said authorities did not know where the other illegal workers are now. An agent with the immigration service said as far as he knew none had been deported.

Short, stocky and handsome, with neat gray hair tinged with white, Jose Calhelha sat with a calm expression on his face throughout the proceedings Friday. He wore jeans and a gray sweat shirt under a black jacket.

His daughter, dressed in a yellow hooded sweat shirt and gray sweat pants, her brown hair in a ponytail, appeared nervous. Dow repeatedly reassured her with a hand on her back.

Jose Calhelha faces up to 70 years in prison and a fine of up to $1.75 million if convicted on all seven counts. Diana Calhelha would face up to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $500,000 if convicted on all counts.

From at least 2002 until he sold the stores last July, Calhelha and others allegedly recruited people from Portugal to work at his doughnut shops in Branford, Derby, East Haven, Old Saybrook and Westbrook, the indictment alleges.

Calhelha promised the illegal workers certain positions, salary and benefits, paid their airfare to the United States and put them up in his home and at an apartment in Branford, the indictment states. But the immigrants soon found themselves working 85 or more hours a week for as little as $1,000 a month.

Calhelha put them to work without the required paperwork and drove them to the work sites. In addition to long hours at Dunkin' Donuts, Calhelha required his workers to perform other jobs such as painting, landscaping and snow removal at the stores and at his residence, according to the indictment.

The U.S. attorney said Calhelha deducted payments for room and board and "attorneys fees" from their salaries. And, although he initially paid the workers in cash, the indictment says, he later paid them with fraudulent checks made out to other people.

The indictment also alleges Calhelha sold the workers fraudulent identity documents, and filled out fraudulent employment and tax forms for them.

Some of the people recruited from Portugal worked as managers and were told by Calhelha not to employ "Americans," the indictment states. O'Connor said more than half of the people employed at Calhelha's shops were illegal immigrants - a number he guessed to be at least 150, possibly in the hundreds. Calhelha cheated some of those workers out of regular and overtime pay, the indictment alleges.

http://www.boston.com

Businessman wants immigrant smuggling charges dropped
July 17, 2006

NEW HAVEN, Conn. --A Connecticut businessman accused federal prosecutors of overreaching and misrepresenting the law when they charged him in one of the state's largest immigrant smuggling cases.

Jose Calhelha was charged in January with smuggling immigrants from Portugal to work in his chain of Dunkin' Donuts restaurants. U.S. Attorney Kevin O'Connor said Calhelha exploited the American dream.

Prosecutors have since dropped one of the most serious charges in the case, one accusing him of shuttling 10 or more aliens into the country, and Calhelha asked this week that the entire case be thrown out.

Authorities said Calhelha placed employment advertisements in Portuguese newspapers, then illegally brought managers to the United States to work in his 10 stores in Branford, Westbrook, Derby, East Haven and Old Saybrook.

But defense attorneys say the federal smuggling law requires that prosecutors show Calhelha knowingly brought illegal immigrants into the country. The immigrants at issue in this case arrived on commercial planes and, because they were from Portugal, were allowed legal entry to the country without visas.

"One may not be guilty of 'bringing in' aliens if he did nothing to bring them in," attorneys wrote.

Prosecutors have a week to respond to the motions. Calhelha and his daughter, Diana, are set to go on trial in September.