Hosam Amara, a former senior manager at Agriprocessors kosher
slaughterhouse in Postville, Iowa, signed a plea agreement today. Amara admitted to being a
part of a conspiracy led by Sholom Rubashkin to knowingly employ and harbor immigrants who
entered the country illegally.
Hosam Amara
Amara To Plead Guilty In Agriprocessors Conspiracy
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
Hosam Amara, a former senior manager at Agriprocessors kosher
slaughterhouse in Postville, Iowa, signed a plea agreement today. Amara admitted to being a
part of a conspiracy led by Sholom Rubashkin to knowingly employ and harbor immigrants who
entered the country illegally, the AP has reported.
Amara will plead guilty tomorrow to one count of conspiring to harbor undocumented immigrants for profit.
The agreement was filed today. His plea hearing is set for tomorrow at the federal courthouse in Cedar Rapids.
He faces as much as 10 years in prison.
Prosecutors will likely dismiss 26 other counts against Amara – including counts related to his abuse of the immigrant workers and a conspiracy to defraud them.
Amara fled to Israel with the help of Agriprocessors VP Sholom Rubashkin immediately after the 2008 immigration raid at Agriprocessors led to the arrest of 389 undocumented workers.
Amara was not extradited until this year due to Israel’s inability to locate Amara – who was hiding in plain sight with his family in the villa he owned in Kfar Kana.
It is unclear whether Amara has given the government information on other conspirators, including Sholom Rubashkin – currently serving a 27-year prison sentence for fraud – and other Rubashkin family members.
Another Agriprocessors manager, Ze'ev Levi, is still a fugitive from justice and is thought to be hiding in Israel.
Update 4:21 pm CDT – A new AP report adds:
[Hat Tip: The Lion.]…In the plea agreement signed by Amara last week, he admitted that he conspired with Agriprocessors CEO Sholom Rubashkin and other executives for at least five years before the raid to harbor immigrants "knowing and in reckless disregard of the fact" they had come to the U.S. illegally. He also admitted to conspiring to encouraging and inducing them to stay in the U.S.
The agreement says that Amara complained to Rubashkin in 2007 about a shortage of workers after U.S. immigration authorities warned that the plant could no longer accept permanent resident alien cards as identification for workers. Amara encouraged existing foreign workers to tell their family members to illegally come to Postville for work, and they were put on the payroll of a separate company, Hunt Enterprises, to make it appear that they were not working at Agriprocessors.
After the raid, Rubashkin told Amara to get out of the United States, saying, "Just go ahead and leave and forget about everything here" and giving him $4,000 for plane fare and other expenses, the document states.…