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Three aircraft workers sentenced

6-23-05
By Taft Wireback, Staff Writer
News & Record

GREENSBORO -- Three foreign-born aircraft workers formerly affiliated with TIMCO were sentenced Wednesday to prison.

Their terms range from time served to five months for crimes tied to illegal immigration.

Jorge Chacon, of Panama, Martin Cuevas, of Peru, and Jaime Millan, of Chile, pleaded guilty this spring in U.S. Middle District Court to one count each of misdeeds involving document fraud.

U.S. District Judge N. Carlton Tilley Jr., in separate hearings, sentenced Chacon to the 107 days he already has served, Millan to the three months he has been in custody and Cuevas to five months that will keep him behind bars for six more weeks.

The sentences also include three years of probation with heightened penalties should the men return to the United States illegally and be caught.

They are the first to be sentenced among 27 TIMCO-affiliated aviation workers netted March 8 in a federal immigration probe. Eleven of the detainees faced criminal charges; the rest confronted administrative deportation.

With their criminal cases behind them, Chacon, Cuevas and Millan also face deportation to homelands they left as long ago as the mid-1990s.

"I always have tried to do everything right," Chacon, 53, told Tilley. "But I have to survive, and that's why I did it."

Chacon fudged an employment form submitted to a TIMCO contractor, falsely claiming he was entitled to work there because he was a "citizen or national of the United States."

The arrests were part of Operation Tarmac, a federal initiative begun after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to keep illegal immigrants from jobs in the aviation industry.

There was no hint of terrorism in any of the TIMCO arrests.

But federal officials have said Tarmac's goals also include pointing out vulnerabilities in the aviation industry.

"These cases are about aviation safety and national security," Assistant U.S. District Attorney Arnold Husser said during Millan's proceeding.

Chacon, Cuevas and Millan were characterized as hard workers who paid taxes on their earnings and sent money to struggling family members in their native lands.

"He always said you have to be committed," Chacon's sister, Maria Ramirez, said of his attitude toward his work at TIMCO.

"He said that it is a scientific job, there are so many lives in your hands."

His attorney, Robert McClellan, said Chacon had been in contact with immigration authorities over the years trying to achieve legal status.

Ramirez, a U.S. citizen who lives in Greensboro, said her brother was the victim of an immigration attorney who botched his application for legal residence.

Chacon used some of the money he earned at TIMCO to put his daughter through college, she said.

At TIMCO, he was known as a tireless worker often asked to tackle the most difficult tasks, she said.

Cuevas, 38, pleaded guilty to possessing a counterfeit green card and received stiffer punishment than the other two because of something in his background highlighted in his pre-sentence report.

His attorney, Ames Chamberlin of Greensboro, said he could not reveal the incident without Cuevas' permission. But in court he said it was a reflection of how desperately Cuevas wanted to remain here.

An interpreter was present at all three hearings, but Cuevas was the one who appeared to need her.

Millan, 26, was sentenced for altering his travel visa to wrongly show he was a permanent resident with permission to work here.

Should he return legally to the United States, "I think he'll make someone a good employee," Salisbury attorney Bays Shoaf said.

Shoaf added that Millan has fretted about paying his federal tax bill next year.

Tilley told the men that their desire to remain in the United States was understandable but they had gone about it in the wrong way.

"Sometimes people who are not born here are much better able to appreciate the benefits of citizenship than those who are born here," the judge said.



Contact Taft Wireback at 373-7100 or twireback@news-record.com