Government Asks Judge To Sentence Agriprocessors Supervisor to As Much As 6 1/2 Years In Prison

Government notes car extortion scheme, sexual abuse and harassment along with Amara's immigration charges.

Hosam Amara

Government Asks Judge To Sentence Agriprocessors Supervisor to As Much As 6 1/3 Years In Prison
Shmarya Rosenberg • Failedmessiah.com

“Agriprocessors was a business which intended to make a profit. Agriprocessors did so, in large part, on the basis of cheap, undocumented alien labor,” federal prosecutors wrote in a document filed in the case of former Agriprocessors supervisor Hosam Amara last week.

Amara, who was the senior poultry manager at the glatt kosher slaughterhouse in Postville, Iowa, fled Postville in 2008 with the help of Agriprocessors VP Sholom Rubashkin after the massive immigration raid at Agriprocessors. Amara hid in the open at his luxury villa in Kfar Kana, Israel and Israeli officials initially allegedly claimed they were unable to find him.

Amara was indicted in absentia and, after a very long delay, was finally extradited to the US early this year.

Amara pleaded guilty to conspiracy to harbor more than 100 undocumented workers and is due to be sentenced.

Both Amara and the government recently filed sentencing memoranda, but Amara’s has been sealed by the court.

The government’s memorandum is not sealed and is attached below.

In it the government asks the judge to sentence Amara to between 63 and 78 months in federal prison.

It also asks the judge to take into account Amara’s financial and sexual exploitation of the undocumented workers he helped hire.

Among many other other things, the government’s memorandum argues that:

• Only days after the May 2008 Agriprocessors immigration raid at, Amara asked undocumented workers to return to work and promised them that immigration enforcement was gone and that they would be safe to return to work.

• In 2007, Amara joined with Rubashkin and others in a scheme to bypass Agriprocessor’s human resources head, Elizabeth Billmeyer, by hiring undocumented workers after hours paying them through the payroll of Hunt Enterprises – a company set up at Rubashkin’s request, at first to pay workers who cleaned and repaired the plant on the Jewish Sabbath, when Jews are forbidden to work and, in most cases, employ non-Jews to work for them. Hunt enterprises was owned by a senior plant manager, Don Hunt, and his wife, and eventually expanded at Rubashkin’s direction from the Sabbath hires to hiring the undocumented workers with bad or questionable identification documents that Billmeyer would no longer hire.

• Amara made arrangements for employees to receive new fake IDs including giving an employee the phone number of a former Agriprocessors supervisor in Minnesota who specialized in getting fake resident alien and Social Security cards.

• Amara also sold used cars undocumented workers as a quid-pro-quo for hiring them and/or keeping them on the Agriprocessors’ payroll. The cars were allegedly sold at inflated prices and the sales were financed by Amara. About 200 used cars and trucks per year year were allegedly sold in this fashion.

• Undocumented female workers got easier jobs and promotions if they gave Amara sexual favors.

Amara denies many of the government’s claims – which are all based on witness testimony, on recovered documents and on other cited evidence.

Amara insists he should receive a lighter sentence than the government is asking for because he didn’t profit from the harboring the undocumented workers – a claim the government strongly rejects. It also notes that Amara fled the country to avoid arrest and to avoid testifying against co-conspirators at trial.

The government’s sentencing memorandum also notes that Rubashkin also helped an unidentified rabbi who was part of the Agriprocessors immigration scheme to flee to Israel along with his entire family to avoid arrest and prosecution.

Also, the government noted that scheme members who eventually ended up cooperating with the government were first offered full compensation by Rubashkin for every day they would have to spend in prison. Rubashkin authored contracts that spelled out the arrangements for each scheme member with a blank spot left for the number of years or months each would be sentenced to.

The government's sentencing memo as a PDF file:

Download Hosam Amara Government's Sentencing Memorandum 12-2013

Comments

[neighborgirl]

I felt sure that Amara had knowledge that would incriminate members of the Rubashkin family as part of his guilty plea. Is there any indication that this might happen?

[dh]

The fact that he's getting 6 years instead of 16 and his deal is sealed?

[state of disgust]

Hosam Amara was hired in Israel by Aaron Rubashkin, or so I was told by close friends and advisors of the Rubashkins, because he knew how to "run a kosher poultry processing line." Therefore, Mr. Amara is in a position to implicate Aaron in the management of Agriprocessors and the fraud that was committed there, as well as other family members who might have been involved in the decision making at the firm.
The question is whether or not Federal Prosecutors are interested in pursuing justice in a case this old, or have the stomach to do so.
Postville has never fully recovered from fraud and scandal perpetrated by the Rubashkins and all those who supported them both actively and passively - and it never will until those who played a role, take responsibility (think a truth and reconciliation commission) for their actions.
The conviction of Hosam Amara could be the start of such a process.
Reality check: People would rather bury and try to forget past mistakes then face them and make changes. Postville is no different.