Legal News

Feds Arrest Meat Packing Exec, Allege Labor Practices Aren?t Kosher

By Dan Slater

A truck leaves the AgriProcessors slaughterhouse in Postville, Iowa. (AP/Charlie Neibergall)

Trouble returns to Postville. Last month we told you that the Iowa AG brought an array of criminal charges for child labor violations against the owners and top managers of Agriprocessors, a kosher meatpacking plant where nearly 400 workers were detained in a May immigration raid.

The latest: Yesterday the feds arrested Sholom Rubashkin, a former senior exec of the kosher meat plant who’s also the son of the founder, Aaron Rubashkin. A complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Cedar Rapids alleges that Aaron employed illegal immigrants for commercial gain and helped them secure fake documents. Click here for the complaint.

According to the WSJ, the charges are a sign of stepped up enforcement against employers who use illegal labor. The initial raid, in May, marked one of the largest work-site raids under the Bush administration, which has increased action against companies believed to employ illegal immigrants. Most of the detained workers were sentenced to five months in prison for engaging in identity theft but pleaded guilty to lesser charges and were recently deported after serving their sentences.

The charges against Sholom include encouraging an illegal immigrant to reside in the U.S., aiding and abetting the possession and use of fraudulent identification and aiding and abetting the use of another individual’s documents, which constitutes “aggravated identity theft,” according to the complaint. The WSJ could not reach Sholom for comment.

Law Blog Diversions: For those LB Loyals in need of some pleasure reading on this Friday morning, or who are simply interested in how the Rubashkins, a Lubovitch family from Brooklyn, made their strange journey from Crown Heights to Postville, Iowa, we recommend Stephen Bloom’s “Postville.” Or, if you want less of a commitment, check out a recent Portfolio feature, “A Beef With the Rabbis.”

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on October 31, 2008 (boomark / email).