Former union rep guilty of harboring illegals
By AMY LORENTZEN, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
POSTED: May 9, 2008
DES MOINES — A former union representative was found guilty on Thursday of harboring illegal immigrants working at a Swift & Co. meatpacking plant in Marshalltown.
A federal jury found Braulio Pereyra-Gabino not guilty of other charges, including false use of a Social Security number and aggravated identity theft.
He faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine on the harboring charge.
Pereyra-Gabino was working as vice president of Local 1149 of the United Food and Commercial Workers union when he was arrested by federal immigration officials in July 2007.
Prosecutors contend that he told undocumented workers how to escape detection and protect their fake identities used to get jobs at the Marshalltown plant.
Pereyra-Gabino’s attorney, Keith Rigg, declined to comment on Thursday’s verdict. A telephone message seeking comment from the U.S. attorneys office for the Southern District of Iowa wasn’t immediately returned.
Federal officials said the charges resulted, in part, because of union orientation speeches that Pereyra-Gabino gave to all new Swift employees of Hispanic descent. They said he told illegal workers to do things such as hide their identification in their boots and not tell anyone else which workers did or did not have legal authorization to work in the U.S.
Earlier in the week, a prosecution witness testified that Pereyra-Gabino knew she was an illegal immigrant but told her how to obtain documents to work at the Swift plant. She taped the conversation with him as she cooperated with the federal investigation.
Rigg argued that Pereyra-Gabino may have said things during those orientation speeches that the jury may not like, but that those words were protected by his right to free speech and that no crime occurred.
Pereyra-Gabino was also accused of filling out a job application at Swift for his nephew in December 2005, and providing the company with a Social Security number issued to another man, Mohammed Carrasquillo. Prosecutors called Carrasquillo, who testified that he never filed an application at Swift or worked there.
A handwriting expert testified that the application was likely filled out by Pereyra-Gabino.
Another Swift & Co. worker pleaded guilty earlier this year to harboring an illegal immigrant.
Christopher Lamb, a human resources manager, was arrested after authorities recorded him coaching an illegal immigrant on how to use fake documents to get hired. The worker Lamb allegedly coached was among those arrested during a raid on the Swift plant in December 2006. Lamb also admitted hiding an illegal immigrant at the plant.
He was sentenced to a year of probation.
In December 2006, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials raided six plants in Iowa, Nebraska, Texas, Colorado, Utah and Minnesota, arresting 1,297 workers.
