NYT: Former Manager of Iowa Slaughterhouse Is Acquitted of Labor Charges

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/08/us/08immig.html

By JULIA PRESTON
Published: June 7, 2010

The former manager of a kosher slaughterhouse in Iowa that was the site of a 2008 immigration raid was acquitted on Monday of criminal charges that he knowingly employed under-age workers at the plant.


Matthew Putney/The Waterloo Courier, via Associated Press

Sholom Rubashkin, the former slaughterhouse manager, and a defense lawyer, Mark Weinhardt, after hearing the verdict.


After a five-week trial in state court in Waterloo, Iowa, the jury rejected prosecutors’ arguments that the manager, Sholom Rubashkin, had seen many warning signs that child laborers were working on production lines at the Agriprocessors plant. The jury, after about 12 hours of deliberations, found Mr. Rubashkin not guilty of all 67 charges of child labor violations.

“The key was whether the state had evidence that Mr. Rubashkin actually knew that minors were working in the plant and willfully permitted that condition to exist,” said Mark Weinhardt, a defense lawyer. “The state simply did not have evidence to prove that.”

The verdict brought rare good news for Mr. Rubashkin since the raid at the plant in Postville on May 12, 2008, when federal agents arrested 389 illegal immigrants, most from Guatemala. The operation became an emblem of the high-profile immigration enforcement strategy under President George W. Bush.

In November, Mr. Rubashkin was convicted in federal court in Iowa of 86 counts of bank fraud in connection with loans to Agriprocessors. Federal prosecutors are seeking a 25-year sentence on those charges. Sentencing is scheduled for June 22.

Iowa’s child labor case was the only criminal action against Mr. Rubashkin arising from the large number of illegal immigrants who were employed at the plant. After winning the financial fraud conviction, federal prosecutors dismissed all immigration-related charges against him.

FULL story at link.