Rubashkins, Knowing Raid Was Imminent, Tried To A Cut Deal

After plant had ignored several warnings from Feds, Rubashkin legal team tried to cut deal to avoid "disruption."

 

Sholom, Aaron, Yossie and Heshy Rubashkin with US Senator Charles Grassley in Sholom's home during a Grassley Campaign fundraising event.

As you read this, remember the Social Security Administration had repeatedly warned Agriprocessors about employee Social Security numbers which did not match government records.

Agriprocessors ignored those warnings.

Then, after the government had already mobilized hundreds of law enforcement personnel in preparation for a raid, the company suddenly tried to cut a deal.

The company attorney in Washington (DC) mentioned should be Nathan Lewin.

Chaim Abrahams is listed in court documents as Sholom Rubashkin's brother-in-law:

Agriprocessors was expecting raid 1 day later, witness says
BY GRANT SCHULTE • Des Moines Register

Sioux Falls, S.D. — Top executives of an eastern Iowa slaughterhouse knew they were about to be raided by immigration agents and offered to cooperate with the government several days before the bust, a plant manager testified Monday.

Chaim Abrahams, a purchasing manager at Agriprocessors Inc., told federal jurors about a May 8 meeting at the Postville plant that included Sholom Rubashkin, his brother and other high-ranking employees. Company lawyers from Chicago and Washington participated by phone.

"We sent the government a letter prior to the raid that we would do anything necessary to avoid a disruption," Abrahams testified.

Managers knew an immigration raid "was very likely" the following week, Abrahams said, but they incorrectly believed it would take place on May 13, 2008.

Federal agents entered the plant on May 12, 2008, in what was then the largest single-site workplace crackdown in U.S. history. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained 389 workers - about one-third of the work force - and combed the plant for incriminating papers.

Abrahams' testimony came during the fourth week of Rubashkin's 91-count financial fraud trial. Rubashkin has pleaded not guilty.

Abraham described Rubashkin as an incompetent manager who tackled too much and fell into constant screaming matches with his brother, Heshy.

Later, on cross-examination by Assistant U.S. Attorney Matt Cole, Abrahams acknowledged that Rubashkin was a smart man who handled all of the plant's finances.

Abrahams told jurors that chronic worker shortages led to sloppiness in the plant's day-to-day operations. Rubashkin juggled five to seven tasks at a time and was difficult to reach unless dire problems arose, Abrahams said.

At the same time, a "major disconnect" between Rubashkin and Heshy led to screaming matches and poor communication, he said. Abrahams said he was uncomfortable sharing his assessment in public, but was pressed by defense lawyer F. Montgomery Brown.

Rubashkin's legal team argues that alleged fraud at the plant was caused by incompetence and poor record-keeping, instead of corruption.

Abrahams still works at the plant, now renamed and under new management, with Heshy Rubashkin.

Nathan Lewin On Agriprocessors.

Comments

[FirstGenerationBavarianAmerican]

Pilgrim's Pride was raided on April 16th, 2008:
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN1636246220080416

The way Pilgrim's Pride spun it, they cooperated with the government and knew when the raid was going to take place.

What kind of deal could have Agri cut? All Pilgrim's Pride did was let the agents question suspected illegals in the plant and not make them run all over town trying to find the illegals. The Feds learned a long time ago that if they just showed up, the illegals would run out the back door and find jobs across town the next day.

[Hometown Postville]

So is ignoring federal warnings part of "ignorance?" Maybe so, if one doesn't know how to read the letter.

[critical_minyan]

nat lewin gave his clients extremely, extremely bad legal advice. He was too agressive, wanting to make this a constitutional issue instead of a commercial issue.
He should have told them to behave and compromise. Instead, Agriprocessors played hardball with the government. As a result, the company went out of business, and Rubashkin will end up in jail.
The additional fact that Lewin was so contentious in his debates with PETA, generated additional negative publicity for Agriprocessors. He turned the whole issue into a battle against Kosher foods. This was not a publicity battle that Agriprocessors could win. They were put in the position of defending pain against helpless animals. Don't they remember the baby seal ban? Negative publicity against a company stimulates prosecutors to pursue a case, like sharks sensing blood in the water.
hiring Nat Lewin as his advisor ranks was one of Sholom Rubashkin biggest mistakes.

[WoolSilkCotton]

When you get in trouble with the government, you must do 3 things:

Keep your mouth shut in public, lay low, and avoid all media.

Arrange for a meeting with the government agency involved, express remorse and contrition over 'mistakes and terrible misunderstandings', and promise to immediately clean up any problems at the company.

Ask how much of a check you need to write in order to resolve the matter.

These three must be done with a competent attorney. Instead, it's been in-your-face all the way, and deny deny deny. The decision to make this a Jews-vs-the-USA case was both Lewin and SMR's brilliant idea.

Now the defense is to claim incompetence, anger management, and erectile dysfunction. What a bunch of clowns.

[justice seeker]

A stupidity defense, I like it. Not evil, not corrupt, just stupid. Its simple and it has a ring of truth to it, except it is probably not a case of either/or. More likely it is corrupt, evil, and stupid.

[itchiemayer]

Rubashkin's incompetence/greed/lack of ethics is wasting federal tax money. Yet another chillul Hashem. Sure, he is entitled to his day in court, but that does not give him the halachic right to not be totally forthcoming from the start of this entire process. If he was machmir on business ethics from the start, he would not be in this predicament.

[justice seeker]

OK lets say you get tossed in the slammer, who is the more interesting cellmate, Bernie or Sholom?

[WoolSilkCotton]

Sholom would probably get lots of deli and kugels delivered to Otisville, along with vodka and Mt. Dew. I'll room with SMR.

[WoolSilkCotton]

The Rubashkin Crime Family is known to mosser and go to secular court instead of Bais Din. Here's an old story:

http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/ny_local/1996/
08/20/1996-08-20_neighbors_in__nightmare__bat.html

[CR]

"A stupidity defense, I like it. Not evil, not corrupt, just stupid. Its simple and it has a ring of truth to it, except it is probably not a case of either/or. More likely it is corrupt, evil, and stupid."

Hey, most members of Congress claim just that when they admit to not reading the several thousand-plus page bills they are now casting votes on.

[FirstGenerationBavarianAmerican]

One of the things the defendant's supporters keeping claiming is that no one was charged in any of the other big plant ICE raids. I wondered how Howard Industries and Pilgrims Pride could come out unscathed. Well, they didn't. The Leader-Call of Laurel, Miss. kept following the Howard Industries story, and they have free archives. A company personnel director was indicted:
http://www.leadercall.com/archivesearch/local_story_260110824.html
An even later story indicates the trial has been postponed to January 11th, 2010. Howard Industries is privately owned. One letter to the editor brings up parallels to this case:
http://www.leadercall.com/archivesearch/local_story_249102111.html

I did find a story that two employees of one Pilgrims Pride plant were charged:
http://www.dailytribune.net/articles/2008/10/15/news/04.txt
At the time of the raid, Pilgrims Pride was publicly held, trading on the NYSE. They declared bankruptcy Dec. 1, 2008. A reorganization plan is pending, with JBS of Brazil to buy a majority share in the company.

[A E ANDERSON]

"When you get in trouble with the government, you must do 3 things:

1. Keep your mouth shut in public, lay low, and avoid all media.
2. Arrange for a meeting with the government agency involved, express remorse and contrition over 'mistakes and terrible misunderstandings', and promise to immediately clean up any problems at the company.
3. Ask how much of a check you need to write in order to resolve the matter." [ . . . ]

Do you mean the US Government? Or the KGB? Sad that this is the recommended operating procedure for free people in a free republic!

[A E ANDERSON]

Mr. First Generation Bavarian American:

I think you make Rubashkin's case quite well with your revelation about Pilgrim's Pride. That is, here is another case where our own government, through harsh and poorly executed law enforcement, gave over a domestically owned business in a troubled economy to foreign owners.

Not only are these egregious cases of throwing out the baby with the bathwater, but they show how the federal immigration authorities are unable to see the forest beyond the (wetback hiding behind the) trees.

Thank you ICE blackshirts for helping the very economy that pays your very generous General Schedule salaries and benefits!

N.B. - In retrospect, ICE should have waited another six months until after Oct. 2008, by which time our national financial leaders , public and private, would have finished tanking the economy and propelling actual employment to the stratospheric levels at which it now stands. Today, I venture to say one could find native-born university graduates who would take Agri jobs, if the sob stories in American newspapers are to be believed.

If you ask me, I think the US attorney should better spend his time prosecuting the leaders of Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, AIG, and so on, who through their officially sanctioned greed have brought this great economic debacle upon us. Like all of us, Sholom Rubashkin is nothing more than a victim of a failing American economic system.

[reuven sabel]

this is a case of racial profiling. rubashkin has been singled out for prosecution because he is a jew!