Thread: Mushroom grower pleads guilty to 'harboring' illegal aliens

Mushroom grower pleads guilty to 'harboring' illegal aliens at Independence farm: U.S. Attorney


The Hale Boggs Federal Building at 500 Poydras St. in New Orleans. (NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune archive)

By Bob Warren, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune
on July 14, 2015 at 6:14 PM, updated July 14, 2015 at 6:15 PM

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A Pennsylvania company pleaded guilty Tuesday (July 14) to "harboring'' illegal aliens at a farm in Independence, the U.S. Attorney's office in New Orleans said. M.D. Basciani and Sons Inc., pleaded guilty to one count in a bill of information accusing the company of hiring the illegals at the Red Hill Mushroom Farm.

U.S. District Judge Jay C. Zainey sentenced the company to three years of probation and ordered it to forfeit more than $1 million it earned as a result of employing the illegal workers, the U.S. Attorney's office said.

Zainey also ordered the company to provide training to its managers regarding U.S. immigration laws and to comply with future inspections.

Court documents show the company hired several of the same workers under different names after an immigration inspection revealed they were not authorized to work in the U.S., the U.S. Attorney's office said. While the company's records showed the workers had been "fired,'' they actually continued to work for the company, growing and picking mushrooms at the farm, the documents said.

The U.S. Attorney's office said the farm's manager and a supervisory employee have already pleaded guilty to a "pattern'' of employing the illegal aliens.

"It is important to ensure that all businesses are competing on a level playing field, and using illegal labor to increase profits will not be tolerated," U.S. Attorney Polite said in a news release Tuesday. "We will insist that every dollar in illegal proceeds is forfeited so that this illegal conduct does not pay."
Polite praised the work of the Homeland Security Investigations in the case.

"Companies that violate federal law by employing workers illegally 'under the table' gain an unfair advantage over businesses that play by the rules," Cindy M. Johnson, acting special agent in charge of HSI New Orleans, said in the news release.

http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/..._grower_p.html