Illegal Border Crossings Today:

Archives of Employer Sanctions 2011

Priority Enforcement Program (PEP)

January 2014

  • December 2011 — Michael Malecot, a San Diego bakery owner, was sentenced to five years probation and fined $396,575 after he pled guilty to hiring and employing illegal immigrants. He had been doing so since 2003 even though he was fined by the INS in the 1990s for employing illegal aliens. He agreed to evidence proving that 91 illegal immigrants had been employed unlawfully and that he had repeatedly re-hired illegal aliens after the company received ‘no-match’ letters from the Social Security Administration notifying that the employees’ names did not match the Social Security numbers reported on tax returns. (Examiner, December 25, 2011) 
  • December 2011 — A dairy farmer in Chenango County, NY agreed last week to pay a $3000 fine for employing undocumented workers. (North Country Public Radio, December 19, 2011)
  • November 2011 — Ivan Hardt, president of Sun Dry Wall & Stucco Inc., a construction contractor in southern Arizona, pled guilty to knowingly hiring illegal immigrants. He faces up to six months in prison and/or a fine of $450,000. Jose A. Gutierrez Tapia, the foreman in charge of stucco crews for the company, pled guilty to knowingly hiring at least 10 undocumented immigrants and was sentenced to two months in prison and three years of supervised release. (Latin American Herald Tribune, November 14, 2011)
  • October 2011 — Michel Malecot, a French-born owner of a restaurant in San Diego, pled guilty to a misdemeanor charge of continuing to employ illegal aliens. He could be sentenced to as much as six months in prison. He had been facing a raft of other charges and the possibility of 30 years in prison, almost $4 million in fines and the government seizure of his restaurant, the French Gourmet. Mr. Malecot’s company and one of its managers also pled guilty to a felony charge of hiring at least 10 undocumented workers. The manager, Richard Kauffmann, could be sentenced to prison for up to five years. (New York Times, October 14, 2011) 
  • August 2011 — Janell Compton, the owner of a uniform service company in Arkansas, pled guilty to employing illegal aliens. She was sentenced to three years probation and fined $5,000. (Houston Chronicle, August 31, 2011)
  • August 2011 — Samira Zuniga, the owner of Xtreme Construction, an Iowa City roofing company, pled guilty to harboring and employing illegal immigrants. DHS/ICE officials arrested nine illegal immigrants working for the company in April. Zuniga faces up to 15 years in prison. (Associated Press, August 31, 2011)
  • August 2011 — George Valvanis, the manager of several Dunkin’ Donuts stores in Maine, pled guilty to employing illegal aliens. As a result of his plea, he was sentenced to 6 months of home confinement, a fine of $64,000 and 5 years of probation with 20 hors of community service per month. (AP August 2, 2011)
  • July 2011 — A Maine blueberry grower, Jasper Wyman and Son, was fined $118,000 for practices allowing the employment of illegal aliens. (Comment: The fine against the company but not individuals suggests that the fine resulted from a paperwork audit of employment practices rather than for knowingly hiring illegal alien workers.) WCSH [TV] News July 21, 2011.
  • July 2011 — Simon Banda-Mireles, a Mexican who illegally reentered the U.S. after deportation as Joge DeLarco, pled guilty to harboring 25 to 100 illegal aliens whom he employed in his restaurants in New York and elsewhere. He also admitted to paying those workers less than the minimum wage. He and ten of his restaurant managers were arrested in 2008. To date 6 of the managers have been convicted, and trials are pending for the other 4. Banda-Mireles was sentenced to 46 months in prison, and must pay restitution in the amount of $239,089 to 15 illegal aliens who worked for him. He also agreed to forfeit $70,009 to the government. (Observer, March 30, 2011, USCIS Press Release, July 14, 2011) 
  • June 2011 — Federal prosecutors have asked for a fine of $475,000 be levied against the owner of a construction contractor who was convicted of knowingly employing illegal alien workers in Louisiana. Randy Weitzel pled guilty on June 3, 2011. Two others convicted at the same time were Woody Brodtmann Jr. and Agustin Arcadia. Proof submitted in the trial included the fact that in 2003 Weitzel allegedly stopped paying a worker under one name and began paying him under another name. (AP June 29, 2011)
  • June 2011 — Johannes and Anthonia Verhaar, owners of a dairy farm in Michigan pled guilty to employing about 80 illegal aliens between 2000 and 2007. They had been notified by the government that some employees were illegal aliens but ignored the warning. In the pleas agreement, they accepted a $2.7 million penalty and face a possible six months in prison. (AP, June 28, 2011)
  • April 2011 — An Iowa dairy farmer, Kenneth Birker, was fined $150,000 following a guilty plea to knowingly employing illegal aliens. The case dates from 2006 when the illegal aliens were detained by immigration authorities. (Iowa Independent, April 22, 2011)
  • March 2011 — Rick M. Vartanian, the owner of a California furniture company was sentenced to 10 months in prison and fined $15,000 for employing illegal aliens. He was also convicted of obstruction of justice. USCIS investigators were told by the owner in 2009 that illegal alien workers found at the plant during an earlier audit were no longer employed when in fact they were still on the payroll. The company’s vice president also pled guilty to one count of employing illegal workers and was ordered to pay a $10,000 fine and was put on probation for one year. (Los Angeles Times, March 9, 2011)