Rubashkin trial: Midday summary
Blog post by Jens Krogstad • Des Moines Register
12:00 p.m., Waterloo, Ia. — The jury is out for lunch. Here is a summary highlighting the morning’s action:
The fingers on Gerardo Solovi Perez’s right hand caught on a conveyor belt one day while working at Agriprocessors.
Before the power-driven belt could rip them off, a friend turned the machine off and freed him, Perez testified Monday in Sholom Rubashkin’s child-labor trial.
Perez was still a minor when he started de-boning chicken legs and packaging meat at the kosher slaughterhouse in Postville.
The jury scribbled notes as he told of his injury and that of another minor at the plant who cut the tips off of his fingers with a saw.
Monday marked the second full week of worker testimony for the prosecution in Rubashkin’s trial. The state alleges the former kosher slaughterhouse executive allowed minors to work excessive hours and around dangerous machinery and chemicals.
When Perez injured his hand, he said his supervisors sent him to the laundry area where the women worked. That’s where the supervisors sent all the injured workers, he said.
They bandaged his middle, ring and pinky fingers and put a large glove around it to keep it from getting wet and infected. Then he returned to work.
“You mean you had to go back to work?” Assistant Iowa Attorney General Laura Roan said.
“Yes, they sent me back upstairs because they said the wounds I had weren’t serious enough to go to the doctor,” Perez said.
Jimi Misram Gomez Marroquin’s parents begged him not go to the United States. The trip was too dangerous, they argued.
But Gomez Marroquin, at 14 years old, had made up his mind, he testified on Monday. He is not among the 31 names listed on the child labor charges.
“They said it was too risky, but in the end I had to convince them. Because I was going to grow up and it was difficult so I wasn’t going to achieve anything there,” he said through an interpreter.
So his parents offered their home for collateral and he made the trip from Guatemala. He obtained fake documents and started working at Agriprocessors in December 2007, around his 15 birthday.
He started his first day at 3 a.m. driving a forklift, but he had to learn how to operate it on his own because he received now training.
Gomez Marroquin, as most of the workers who have testified, said he saw other minors at the plant.
Some of the workers have said the plant rejected their applications until they could produce a birth certificate that proved their age.
Deputy Iowa Attorney General Thomas H. Miller placed a picture of Gomez Marroquin taken by federal agents the day of the raid.
His face appeared full and round. Miller asked if he had lost weight.
“I’ve lost a lot of weight,” Gomez Marroquin said.
“It appears that way,” the state prosecutor said, removing the picture.
11:30 a.m., Waterloo, Ia. — On cross-examination, Perez said Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents didn’t initially believe him when he said he was a minor. He was eventually released to his family after he presented identification that proved his age.
“Based on the chains they put on me, yes, I was treated like I was over 18,” he said.
When he first applied at Agriprocessors, the company rejected him and requested a birth certificate to prove his identity.
It took two to three weeks to obtain a fake birth certificate from Guatemala, Perez said. The slaughterhouse hired him when he presented the second form of identification.
He confirmed he signed a document that says he and eight other workers received emergency safety training.
But when a state prosecutor asked him to read the document, he said he couldn’t because it was in English.
10:35 p.m., Waterloo, Ia. — The fingers on Gerardo Solovi Perez’s right hand caught on a conveyer belt one day while working Agriprocessors. Before the belt ripped them off, a friend turned the machine off and freed him, Perez testified on Monday.
Perez was still a minor when he started de-boning chicken legs and packaging meat at Agriprocessors.
The jury scribbled notes as he told of his injury and that of another minor at the plant who cut the tips off of his fingers with a saw.
When Perez injured his hand, he said his supervisors sent him to the laundry area where the women worked. That’s where the supervisors sent all the injured workers, he said.
They bandaged his middle, ring and pinky fingers and put a large glove around it to keep it from getting wet and infected. Then he returned to work.
“You mean you had to go back to work?” Assistant Iowa Attorney General Laura Roan said.
“Yes, they sent me back upstairs because they said the wounds I had weren’t serious enough to go to the doctor,” Perez said.
The first witness of the day was Roman Trinidad Candido. He began cutting the ribs and hindquarters of beef at Agriprocessors when he was 17.
Candido didn’t offer many details on how he did his work, but said he worked with knives and hooks and had to clean them himself. He said the cuts of beef moved past him on hooks.
He is currently here on a U-visa. He didn’t say what kind of work he now does.
Defense attorney F. Montgomery Brown repeatedly asked Candido if he was sure he was 17 at the time of the May 12, 2008 immigration raid on the plant.
Candido said he was born April 1, 1991, and maintained he was 17 at the time of the raid.
9:05 a.m., Waterloo, Ia. — The second full week of Sholom Rubashkin’s child labor trial is under way. The first witness for the state this morning is Roman Trinidad Candido of Mexico, a former Agriprocessors employee who started working at the kosher slaughterhouse in Postville at 17.