Waterloo, IA – For nearly 45 minutes Thursday, Sholom Rubashkin’s defense attorney showed picture after picture of fresh-faced Latino workers to a state criminal investigator and asked him to guess their ages.
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Jon Turbett, an Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation agent assigned to the case, often estimated they were 17 or 18. He said he couldn’t be certain relying on only one photograph.
“These are hard to pick out, aren’t they?” defense attorney Mark Weinhardt said.
All the photos were of adult workers taken the day of a May 12, 2008, immigration raid on Agriprocessors Inc., a slaughterhouse in Postville, Weinhardt said.
Weinhardt suggested Rubashkin is on trial for his inability to tell the ages of underage workers often masked by protective frocks and hard hats. The former plant executive faces 83 misdemeanor child-labor charges.
Turbett responded that Rubashkin faces prosecution for knowingly allowing minors to work at the plant, and said he believes “that’s the truth.”
Witnesses ranging from a former Agriprocessors security guard to a mother who tried to get her 17-year-old son a job at the plant took the stand Thursday. They said Rubashkin refused to hire minors, and they never saw children working at the plant.
Rubashkin’s defense team for a second day tried to discredit the only witness who has said Rubashkin knew minors worked at the slaughterhouse.
Former plant supervisor Matthew Derrick told the jury on the trial’s first day that he warned Rubashkin about minors at the plant sometime in 2006 and 2007. In response, Rubashkin just smiled and said nothing, Derrick testified.
Derrick said he cared deeply for his workers, and had tried to warn other managers about underage workers at the plant. He told the jury at least half of his employees were minors.
Rabbi Tzvi Bass, who supervised the slaughter of animals, painted a different picture of the man.
Derrick never talked to him about children at the kosher slaughterhouse or unsafe working conditions, Bass said.
He also said he didn’t see any workers who appeared to be under 18 in Derrick’s department.
Bass told the jury he once heard Derrick disparage Guatemalans working under him. Derrick said they needed to pack “these Mexicanos like sardines and send them back to Mexico,” Bass said.
When Bass pointed out they were Guatemalans, Derrick waved his hand dismissively, he said.
The defense began the day by asking the judge to allow the jury to hear evidence that Derrick first revealed the conversation he said he had with Rubashkin on the witness stand.
“If he never revealed it (to the state), it would certainly undermine the credibility of the statement,” Weinhardt said.
Black Hawk County District Associate Judge Nathan Callahan denied the request. But he that said he doubted Derrick’s story and that his statement seemed to catch state prosecutors by surprise.
“I don’t find his statement in regards to his conversation with Sholom Rubashkin all that credible. It’s a tough thing for the defense to deal with,” he said.
The defense later asked Turbett, the state criminal investigator, to review the notes from his first interview with Derrick.
Derrick never mentioned the conversation with Rubashkin, even though he was a suspect in the child labor case, Turbett testified.
My the judge won’t allow somthing so obviues as the fact he fabricated the story on the stand, now I’m not a lawyer but it sounds as if it can be the grounds for an apeale
Somehow the story keeps changing . What happen to the witnesses that said he changed the employee applications ?
why is no one asking the goverment that if in fact they were underage why were they jailed after the raid as adults?
if the goverment can make the mistake, why cant smr ?
“Black Hawk County District Associate Judge Nathan Callahan denied the request. But he that said he doubted Derrick’s story and that his statement seemed to catch state prosecutors by surprise. “
Why wont he allow it?
and the jury is made out of iowa catholic church people
…. good luck
For those of you who may not be aware, SMR’s sentencing pertaining to the federal trial, has been moved to June 22, 2010 (from May 27).
“Rabbi Tzvi Bass, who supervised the slaughter of animals, painted a different picture of the man. Derrick never talked to him about children at the kosher slaughterhouse or unsafe working conditions, Bass said.”
A mashgiach’s only job is to make sure that the food is kosher. So I wouldn’t have expected Derrick to speak to Rabbi Bass about his concerns in other areas.
Where did Reb Rubashkin get these lawyers, from the back of a matchbox?
After this disaster of a case is finished I think he has grounds to appeal on faulty representation.
What difference does it make, if they had shown legal ID as the law required this would be a moot point.
This is a half the sstory article.The main witness yesterday was a reporter from a iowa paper who described what the state told the workers to say about that dirty jew.
It’s really quite simple. You need a green card, work permit, drivers license, and a copy of the original SS card.
That’s is all I assked for in my business. If you couldn’t provide one, hit the bricks, and son’t wait for the door to close behind you.
ANA McCARTHY: I was there to meet with Father Paul and Sister Bradly. I waited by a couple and was talking to them. We could hear what Walsh was saying. He was coaching them, telling them about the rights, what they could do to get legal state. He said they had to say they were being abused by Mr. Rubashkin. told them he was a filthy Jew who became rich at their expense. telling them they could get deported.
If this prosecutions evidence is discounted, what and how will this effect the federal case?
Justice in the U.S. You speed on the parkway and you please guiltt for parking on the highway, just about the same
This case would be the classic analogy to when a virus invades the body and all the leukocytes or known as White blood cells, theses are known as the cells-defenders, against both infectious disease and foreign materials. As the defenders rush to defend they do not differentiate between good and bad, that is why in chemotherapy you have severe side effects, the same is here, it is hilarious the pontificating going on here, at least when I pontificate I say so, but others here just rush head-on without even analyzing their own argument if it hold water or not.
Please allow me to open your eyes, anyone who argues that as long a person brings in any ID during the hiring process, it is ok, and the company is not responsible to do any due diligent, is totally mistaken. First of all, the I-9 itself has written rules which dictates what specific ID is required and how many ID’s in conjunction with the main ID. That is why I think the prosecution asked every person on the stand if Agri requested a driver’s license for an ID. Secondly in the minute an employer gets a no match letter, a set of DHS regulation kicks in, and the most draconian is that if employer doesn’t do his due diligent and ascertain the reason why there is a no match, the employer is seem *deemed* to willfully employ illegal’s, the question is still outstanding if the judge will instruct the jury that in this case if it could be deemed that Agri willfully employed minors and the jury could come to that conclusion. But to state that Agri have no responsibility to ascertain the reason for the no match letters is totally against the rules promulgated by the Department of Homeland Security, in DHS Docket No. ICEB-2006-004.
I think it’s time to send back all those illegal immigrants to there country. Or dump them in the water for entering into our great country illegal. There nothing both truble. All of a sudden the goverment are in love with those morons.. Wake up..