Agriprocessors - Criminal Charges and Trials

Criminal Charges and Trials

This section is transcluded from Postville Raid § Indictments and convictions.

On July 3, 2008, Juan Carlos Guerrero-Espinoza, supervisor of the beef kill department and three other departments, and Martin De La Rosa-Loera, supervisor of the poultry kill department and three other departments, were arrested at the Agriprocessors plant. They were charged with aiding and abetting the possession and use of fraudulent identity documents, and encouraging aliens to illegally reside in the United States. Guerrero-Espinoza was also charged with aiding and abetting aggravated identity theft. In late August 2008, Guerrero-Espinoza reached a deal with federal prosecutors and was sentenced to 36 months in federal prison. The plea deal allowed him to avoid deportation and for his wife and children to return to the US following his prison term. The sentence included a two-year mandatory ruling for aggravated identity theft. After the ruling of the Supreme Court issued on May 4, 2009, he made a request for the reduction of his sentence. Aggravated identity theft charges had formerly been dismissed against human resources employee Laura Althouse, supervisor Brent Beebe and CEO Sholom Rubashkin, the motion contended. In late February 2009, De La Rosa-Loera was sentenced to 23 months in federal prison. Both Guerrero-Espinoza and De La Rosa-Loera, after being released from jail, have gone back to work at the meatpacking plant under the new ownership.

In September 2008 Aaron Rubashkin, his son Sholom Rubashkin, as well as the company's human resources manager, Elizabeth Billmeyer, and two office employees, Laura Althouse and Karina Freund, were charged for child labor violations. State child labor charges against Aaron Rubashkin were dropped, and he was never charged federally.

In October 2008, Althouse pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to harbor illegal aliens and one count of aggravated identity theft. She was sentenced to two years federal probation, Freund to one year of probation. Billmeyer was sentenced to one year and one day in prison, to be followed by two years of supervised release for harboring undocumented aliens and accepting counterfeit resident alien cards. After she agreed to plead to state child labor charges under an agreement with the state, her sentence was reduced to eight months. Former human resources assistant Penny Hanson was sentenced to two years probation on January 7, 2010. State child law charges are still pending against former Agriprocessors supervisor Jeff Heasley, who had his case separated from the other defendants.

On October 30, 2008, Sholom Rubashkin was arrested and charged with conspiracy to harbor undocumented aliens for profit, aiding and abetting document fraud, and aiding and abetting aggravated identity theft. He was released on conditions that he wear a GPS ankle bracelet, limit his travel to the Northern District of Iowa, surrender his passport and his wife′s passport, and provide a $1 million appearance bond with $500,000 to be secured. On November 14, 2008, he was arrested again on a charge of a $35 million bank fraud.

On November 21, 2008, Sholom Rubashkin, Brent Beebe, one of two operations managers at the Agriprocessors plant, poultry managers Hosam Amara and Zeev Levi, and human resources employee Karina Freund were indicted with charges including conspiracy, harboring illegal aliens, aggravated identity theft, document fraud and bank fraud. Beebe pleaded guilty in January 2010 to conspiracy to commit document fraud as part of a plea agreement with the government. In the plea, Beebe admitted that he conspired with former vice president Sholom Rubashkin and others a week before the May 12, 2008 immigration raid at the plant to buy fake identification documents for 19 employees. He was sentenced to 10 months in prison on May 26, 2010. The charges against Freund were dismissed. At the same date, Mitch Meltzer, the plant′s former head accountant, was sentenced to 41 months in prison after his conviction on a federal conspiracy charge. He had admitted in late September 2009, that he conspired with others to make false statements to a bank and that he signed false financial records that were used to mislead the banks. In addition to the prison term, Meltzer was ordered to pay $26.9 million in restitution. Meltzer had been hired by the meat plant′s new owner after having been dismissed by Agriprocessors′ government-appointed trustee, and remained at the company for several months after he pleaded guilty to financial fraud. Amara and Levi fled the USA. Amara was arrested in Israel on March 31, 2011. He is facing extradition proceedings. Levi, who supposedly fled to Naharia, Israel, has not been found by authorities to date, and is currently on Homeland Security's "Most Wanted" list.

On November 12, 2009, Sholom Rubashkin was convicted in federal court on 86 charges of financial fraud, including bank fraud, mail and wire fraud and money laundering. On June 22, 2010, he was sentenced to serve 27 years in prison and to make $27 million in restitution.

On November 23, 2009, Sholom Rubashkin′s second federal trial on 72 immigration charges was canceled. After winning the financial fraud conviction, federal prosecutors dismissed all immigration-related charges against him. In its motion to dismiss, the U.S. Attorneys Office said any conviction on the immigration charges would have no impact upon his sentence, writing, “dismissal will avoid an extended and expensive trial, conserve limited resources, and lessen the inconvenience to witnesses.” Without that trial, it is unlikely that much of the immigration-related evidence gathered at the Agriprocessors site following the raid, or much of the key witness testimony, will ever be publicly revealed.

On June 7, 2010, Sholom Rubashkin was acquitted in state court of knowingly hiring 29 underage workers at the plant.

On June 30, 2010, Alvaro Julian Garcia Jr., aged 73, was sentenced to 60 days in jail followed by two years of supervised release, for having registered vehicles that were sold to undocumented workers in Postville between 2004 and 2006 as part of a vehicle title scheme.