Stephanie Rose

A social justice organization has taken a stand against the woman nominated to be the next U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Iowa.

Friends of Justice issued a statement Wednesday describing the nomination of Stephanie Rose for U.S. attorney as “just plain wrong.”

Rose, who has worked in the office since 1997 and currently serves as the deputy criminal chief, is tainted, according to the organization, due to her involvement in the prosecutions of hundreds of immigrants following a massive raid of the Agriprocessors meatpacking plant in Postville in 2008.

…Rose helped execute the unprecedented use of expedited trials and exploding plea agreements to convict 306 undocumented workers at the Postville. At the time of the Postville Prosecutions, Rose was not a low ranking member of the office but was in a leadership position as third in charge in the office for criminal prosecutions. Earlier this year, Stephanie Rose was asked about her role at Postville. Even in hindsight, she defended the raid and prosecutions saying “executing the massive operation required amazing effort and a ton of good work.”

… We find it impossible to understand what grounds Ms Rose and her colleagues had for choosing to exercise their prosecutorial discretion in this case with such aggression and lack of respect for due process, other than the requirements of their own ambition. They brought the full force of the USA office to bear on the most vulnerable members of a community with full knowledge that the U.S. Department of Labor was conducting an ongoing investigation of child-labor and wage violations at the plant where these same workers were being victimized…

It is criticism that U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, who recommended Rose for the nomination, has heard and answered previously.

“We looked into this in great detail [while considering the recommendation of Rose for the U.S. attorney post],” Harkin told The Iowa Independent in April. “We contacted lawyers that were involved on the defense side during the hearings in Waterloo. The lawyers, who provided defense during that event, have come out with a letter in support of Rose’s nomination.”

The letter referenced by Harkin was signed by 11 defense attorneys who agreed that Rose took no part in the decisions to conduct the immigration raid in Postville or to fast-track the immigrant workers who were detained as a part of the raid.

…She did not make the decision to fast track these cases, nor did she have any part in how the individuals were to be housed. In addition, she did not make the decision regarding what charges were to be brought against these individuals. With the limited discretion that she had regarding the circumstances and particularly the plea agreements, Ms. Rose exercised her judgment admirably and very favorably to defendants.

Any criticism about Stephanie Rose apparently comes from those who have never had a criminal case with her, and instead represent a blanket disagreement with the Immigration policies and statutes of the United States.

Dr. Erik Camayd-Freixas, a federal court interpreter who wrote an explosive essay condemning the handling of the prosecutions resulting from the Postville raid, vehemently disagrees with the defense lawyers who signed the letter in support of Rose.

He provided a brief to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday stating that the “Postville defense attorneys who sent a letter of support for AUSA Rose to Senator Harkin, who recommended her, have no specific knowledge of Rose’s participation in confidential decisions of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, and are not in a position to vouch for her as though there had been no problems with the proceedings or their participation in the defense.”

Camayd-Freixas asserts that the defense attorneys who signed onto the letter were “severely criticized nationally by their colleagues for ineffective assistance of counsel, including taking on an average 17 defendants each, failing to provide accurate advice on immigration consequences, and failing to protect the human and due process rights of their clients.”

In his brief, Camayd-Freixas does fail to note that much of the criticism in the wake of the Postville raid and prosecutions was sparked by and nearly without fail reference his own published essay regarding what transpired and his theories as to why. Camayd-Freixas also pulls information from a wide variety of sources, including congressional testimony, to make his case that Rose’s involvement in the fast-track prosecutions was much more integral than has been described and that the overall process was one that usurped due process in favor of expediency.

Although President Obama has accepted Harkin’s recommendation and placed Rose on the nomination list, the Senate Judiciary Committee has not yet scheduled a hearing on her nomination. When the committee does take up the nomination, U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley will be involved as a member with seniority.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Iowa continues to be led by Matt Dummermuth, a man on the fringe of the national U.S. Attorney scandal who was nominated by then-President George W. Bush, but has never faced Senate confirmation.

Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this blog post incorrectly attributed a statement made about U.S. attorney nominee Stephanie Rose to a southern justice organization called Friends of Justice. A different organization also calling themselves Friends of Justice issued the statement on Wednesday night, not the nonprofit group organized in the wake of a 1999 Tulia drug sting in Texas, which denies it made the statement.

Martin De La Rosa-Loera, of Postville, received the prison term after pleading guilty Aug. 27 to one count of aiding and abetting the harboring of undocumented aliens.

According to court information, De La Rosa-Loera entered the U.S. illegally from Mexico in 1997, and began working at Agriprocessors prior to becoming a lawful resident in 2002. He had since become a naturalized U.S. citizen.

De La Rosa-Loera supervised roughly 70 poultry employees at Agriprocessors, according to court records. In early May 2007, he told his workers that they would need to change their social security numbers and names to continue working in the plant. The changes also came with the employees reverting back to “starting wages” of $6.25 per hour. After his announcement, more than 100 poultry workers staged a walk-out in protest.

Court documents also indicate that De La Rosa-Loera received a list of several employees in late April 2008. Those listed were to be fired from Agriprocesors. Despite supervisors knowing the employees had problems with their social security numbers, De La Rosa-Loera’s supervisor told him six of the most valuable workers could continue employment if they produced new identification documents.

De La Rosa-Loera, according to prosecutors, directed another member of the poultry department under his supervision to obtain new identification documents, and then instructed the employee to tell five additional workers to do the same. Although the human resources director later determined the employees’ new documents “were not right,” the six employees were allowed to continue working at Agriprocessors under their old documents.

U.S. District Court Chief Judge Linda R. Reade sentenced De La Rosa-Loera to 23 months imprisonment. A special assessment of $100 was imposed, and he must also serve a two-year term of supervised release. There is no parole in the federal system. Reade increased his sentence due to his supervisory role in the offense and the harboring of 100 or more illegal aliens.

De La Rosa-Loera is being held in the custody of the U.S. Marshal’s Office until he can be transported to a federal prison. The investigation into illegal activities at the Agriprocessors plant in Postville began in October 2007. The raid, in which 389 workers were detained, was staged on May 12. Several members of management, including day-to-day chief executive Sholom M. Rubashkin, face a myraid of criminal charges ranging from bank fraud to immigration-related offenses. The investigation continues.

The Agriprocessors plant, a kosher meatpacking facility, continues limited operations under the supervision of a Chapter 11 bankruptcy trustee. A sale has been set for March 23, although no major buyer has yet to publicly step forward.

Sholom M. Rubashkin

On Friday U.S. District Court Judge Linda R. Reade ordered a new detention hearing on Jan. 22 in Cedar Rapids. U.S. Magistrate Judge Jon Scoles had previously ordered Rubashkin to be kept in custody pending a September trial date. The decision, which was based in part on Israel’s Law of Return, has drawn an abundance of scrutiny.

“We are pleased with new hearing,” said Guy Cook, Rubashkin’s attorney and former deputy U.S. Attorney in Iowa’s Southern District. “It was very important to Mr. Rubashkin that he be given a new hearing that would allow us to present evidence rather than just review the cold record. He does look forward to presenting evidence and attempting to demonstrate to the court that the facts that Judge Scoles heard — which I’m sure he was motivated to do his best — but those facts were taken out of context.

“[Mr. Rubashkin] has no intention of flight. He was not going to flee then. He’s not going to flee now.”

A fourth indictment in the case, filed with the federal courts late Thursday, list charges ranging from immigration conspiracy to money laundering to willful violation of an order of the U.S. secretary of agriculture. In addition to Rubashkin, 49, the indictments also name the Agriprocessors company and former plant managers Brent Beebe, Hosam Amara and Zeev Levi. Both Amara and Levi are believed to have fled to Israel prior to charges being filed against them, and are being sought by federal authorities.

“I don’t want to violate any of the rules regarding comment, but you can make your own decision as to why it is a 99-count indictment,” Cook said. “Was there not 100 charges? Was there just one more than 98? … How many times to they have to go forward with charges in this case? People can make charges all day long, but they are still just charges. They shouldn’t take on a life of their own.”

Federal rules regarding a defense attorney’s comments allow for a firm denial of all charges. Cook was adamant that his client does deny all charges and that he will be found innocent.

“These are mere allegations that prove nothing,” he said. “[Rubashkin] is presumed innocent, and he is innocent until and unless the prosecution proves its case. Whether there are 99 charges or 9,000 charges filed is irrelevant.”

Cook listed Rubashkin’s strong ties to the Postville community as evidence that his client is not a flight risk.

“This is a man who has 10 children, and 8 of those 10 still live in Postville,” he said. “He built from the ground up two different schools. This is where his family is. This is where he lives. Not to mention that [if he would flee] it would be a dishonor to his family name and a much greater dishonor to large Jewish contingency that has rallied around him.”

Rubashkin has, according to his attorney, offered several options that could be stipulations to his release pending trial.

“We have offered 24-hour armed guards at his home and at his expense as a condition of release,” Cook said. “The guards would have the authority to arrest him if he left his property.”

This latest indictment primarily re-asserts and provides additional information regarding charges already on the books against the defendants. For instance, the prosecution included a list of 34 “overt acts” associated with charges of conspiracy to commit document fraud. In addition, individual names and instances are now associated with charges of aiding and abetting aggravated identity theft, and those instances are separated by defendant charged.

Among new information contained in the indictment are charges that the company, while under orders from the USDA to promptly pay for livestock purchases, continued to delay or withhold such payments. Meatpackers are required by law to make timely payments for livestock, generally no later than the following business day after an auction purchase agreement. The indictment lists 19 separate instances between February and April 2008 during which Agriprocessors allegedly broke the federal payment requirement. Most of the alleged slow pays were to Iowa cattle suppliers.

Ten counts of money laundering have been added to the charges against Rubashkin and Agriprocessors. All relate back to the earlier charges of bank fraud, when Rubashkin allegedly delayed payment desposits to inflate existing accounts receivable in order to allow the company to further draw from an existing line of credit. The counts document more than $1 million in company funds believed to have been hidden in accounts associated with the Jewish school and community.

In total, the indictment adds 14 counts of bank fraud, 42 counts of making false statements to a bank, 10 counts of money laundering and 20 counts of willfully violating the Packers and Stockyards Act for timely payment.

Beebe, who has previously appeared before the court, was released with an electronic tracking device. Rubashkin remains in federal custody in Dubuque. An arraignment on this latest indictment has been scheduled for 11 a.m. on Jan. 23 in Cedar Rapids.

The Agriprocessors plant, currently being administered by a bankruptcy trustee, was the site of a massive immigration raid on May 12. The trustee has resumed limited production at the Postville facility and is currently in negotiations with possible buyers.

Rubashkin, who is current facing a myriad of federal bank fraud and immigration-related charges, was initially allowed to post bail following his arrest in late October for conspiring in immigration-related offenses. As a condition of bail, Rubashkin and his wife surrendered their passports and he was required to wear an ankle tracking device.

Roughly two weeks later on Nov. 14, Rubashkin was arrested again, this time on multi-million dollar bank fraud charges. Despite offering the court $3.75 million for bail at a Nov. 20 detention hearing, the former chief executive was ordered to remain in federal custody by Scoles. Just this week the judge refused a request by Rubashkin’s attorneys to reconsider the decision to keep Rubashkin behind bars.

While Scoles took several factors into consideration when making his decision to keep Rubashkin in custody, his thoughts concerning Israel’s “Law of Return,” which provides citizenship to any Jew and members of his family who express desire to settle in the country, has drawn the most attention.

Today the Anti-Defamation League, an organization that seeks to stop the defamation of Jewish people, wrote a letter to U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey in relation to the Rubashkin case and cautioning that the “Law of Return” should not be used as leverage to deny bail to Jewish defendants.

Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, signed the letter that was sent to Mukasey, an Orthodox Jew. Foxman noted that the court did not stipulate that Rubashkin had direct ties to Isreal as a basis for its consideration of the “Law of Return.”

“The government and the Detention Order appear to conclude that simply because [Rubashkin] is Jewish, and because Jews may have a claim on Israeli citizenship, his religion is relevant to a bail hearing,” wrote Foxman.

In his refusal to reconsider Scoles chided Rubashkin’s attorneys for fixating on his consideration of Israel’s “Law of Return” and not offering new information as to Rubashkin being a flight risk. The mere fact that Scoles did consider the Israeli law when making his detention order, however, has been enough to spark heated comments from the Jewish community.

The lawyers have indicated that they plant to appeal Scole’s latest decision to U.S. District Court Judge Linda Reade.

Foxman and the ADL is not asking for specifics in the Rubashkin case, but is hoping Mukasey will set policy that will prevent use of the “Law of Return” in detention hearings for Jews. Such direction from the U.S. Attorney General might place pressure on Reade to view Scoles decision to hold Rubashkin in custody pending a September 2009 trial date as discriminatory.

Prosecutors in the case have stood by their decision to include the Israeli law as one of their considerations for the court when determining Rubashkin’s risk of flight. They have claimed Rubashkin tampered with case evidence while out on bail at the time of his second arrest. The court was also told of large amounts of cash discovered in the Rubashkin home at the time of the arrest. The existance of two other former Agriprocessors supervisors, one Muslim and the other Jewish, who are named in federal complaints but have not been apprehended because they are believed to have fled to Israel have also been brought up by prosecutors.

Agriprocessors, once the nation’s largest supplier of kosher meat, was the site of a massive immigration raid on May 12. The company has struggled to be solvent since that time and filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy in November, in the wake of a $35 million lawsuit by one of its creditors. Rubashkin and several other members of plant management are facing charges ranging federal aiding and abetting illegal immigration to state child labor law violations.

It’s a story that’s been difficult to ignore and one that has drawn a worldwide audience. It seems odd, then, that a man who has charged himself with writing a theatrical production based on the events in Postville would have spent the last seven months, as he put it, “with his head in the sand.”

“I see this as being a microcosm of other things that are going on in the country and the world,” said Don Fried, an accomplished Colorado-based playwright and author.

Fried first heard of Postville several years ago, courtesy of a BBC interview with Stephen Bloom, a University of Iowa journalism professor and author of “Postville: A Clash of Cultures in Heartland America,” published in 2000. Fried, who had worked internationally for roughly 30 years as an information technology expert, was in Zurich when he heard the interview and immediately wrote the basics down in his idea file.

After hearing Bloom talk about the book and the community of Postville, Fried said he knew the story offered several avenues for dramatic possibilities because of the cultural conflicts brewing in the community between the Hasidic Jews who founded a kosher meatpacking plant there, the immigrant workers who came to work at the plant and the native Iowa residents.

When he retired in September 2006 and embarked on a new career in the arts, he went back to school at the University of Colorado and began re-visiting the ideas he had filed away.

Although Fried began discussions with Bloom for the theatrical rights to the Postville book some time prior to the immigration raid, the two were in final negotiations when the event occurred. Fried was left with a monumental decision: Should he somehow incorporate the most recent events in Postville into the play he was writing, or should he ignore them entirely?

Don Fried

“As I was preparing for the first reading, I decided I couldn’t bury my head in the sand any longer and that I’d have to come to a decision,” he said. “How could I include what was going on and have it strengthen my theme instead of changing everything I’ve already done?

“I had consciously chosen to ignore the raid and its aftermath — fines, arrests, the meatpacking company going into receivership, and general uproar. But in the seven months since the raid, there has been ongoing news coverage, and I was becoming increasingly concerned that my play was being hijacked. People would expect to see the raid and its implications addressed.”

Fried, who has just finished the first half of the work and has given a first reading, said the overriding theme of his play is that change is an inextricable facet of life.

“What I wanted the play to be about is change,” he said. “Change is inevitable. Change hurts. People, often when they are in pain, react in ways that often turn out to be not the right way, but often there is nobody at fault. If you can learn to live [with change], you’ll learn to reach a new position where things are different, but you’ll get over it.”

Fried is currently toying with the idea of having one of the play’s discontented locals, a character who has not been happy about Jewish people coming to town and building a kosher meatpacking plant there, tip off the federal authorities and spark the immigration raid.

“But then, as the town starts to crater, that person and all the others begin to wonder what has been done — they’ve killed the goose that laid the golden egg,” he said. “My son, who is also playwright, said that this should be the third act. The Hasidim, who have been very isolationist all along, are now presented with a catalyst that shows them they have to deal more with the world.”

One thing Fried does not want the play to be is a tragedy. To keep the play from going that route, he thinks the Hasidim and the residents of Postville will reach some sort of an agreement where they are “not kissing each other on the lips” but have moved to a new position that is livable.

Regardless of how the play ultimately ends, Fried is hopeful a theater company in Iowa or a neighboring state will be interested in producing it.

“Of course, I’ll shop the play anywhere where there is a company that wants to put it on,” he said. “But I was thinking there might be interest in and around that area. It would be a good fit, as long as I could get people to understand that this is a fictional account. It’s no more about what actually happened than ‘The Cruicible’ is about what actually happened in the Salem witch trials.”

Don Fried, a resident of Niwot, Colorado, is co-author of “Ups & Downs: The (Mis)Adventures of a Crusty Old Fart and His Bouncy Son As They Trek Through the Alps.” In the first 24 months of his writing career, he has had four of his plays in production. Two more are scheduled for 2009. His play, “Shakespeare Incorporated,” was selected as one of three finalists in the 2009 Rocky Mountain Theatre Association Festival Playwriting Competition and was also selected as one of the winners of Paragon Theater’s Trench New Play Development Competition.

Todd Lundvall of The Vinton Eagle interviewed local Police Chief Jeff Tilson, who had a lot to say about the role his department has taken in what he describes as an aggressive fight against illegal immigration.

“The laws on the books work just fine,” Tilson told Lundvall. “We just have to enforce them. I always tell people that I cannot create an environment where crime can’t exist, but I can try to create one where crime won’t exist. We have taken a pretty aggressive stand on illegal immigration.”

Although Tilson declined to discuss the specifics of the ongoing Peony Restaurant case, he did say that the investigation that led to that raid, as well as every other federal immigration action in Vinton, was initiated by the local department. Because illegal entry into the U.S. is a crime and because such immigrants can bring “a whole bunch of other problems to the community” Tilson believes he and his department have an obligation to put a stop to such practices.

“Look at what happened to Postville; how widespread it became because nobody paid attention to it,” he said. “If workers are illegal, I want to catch them right at the offset.”

Jose Trujillo-Perez admitted in federal court in Sioux City that he transported five illegal aliens from Arizona to Iowa earlier this month. Trujillo-Perez was driving a van in Woodbury County on Nov. 5 when he was stopped by an Iowa State Patrol officer, who discovered the undocumented immigrants inside.

The man, who remains in custody pending sentencing, faces a possible maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, a $250,000 fine and three years of supervised release. Prior to this arrest, Trujillo-Perez has been arrested 12 times. Two of those arrest resulted in his deportation. He voluntarily left the country after the 10 other arrests.

The report, titled “The Annual Condition of Education Report for 2008,” shows that in the 2007-2008 school year there were more than 20,000 students for whom English was their second language. Three of every four English language learners identified their primary language as Spanish.

Data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows that 120,000 people who classified themselves as Hispanic lived in Iowa last year, a 44 percent increase from 2000.

An analysis of the numbers by The Des Moines Register shows that the increasing number of immigrant families in Iowa is expected to reverse the declining enrollment numbers of Iowa public schools. The number of students has been falling for more than a decade, but in two years enrollment will jump to more than 479,000 students.

State education officials say the enrollment trend is spurred by climbing birth rates, particularly among Hispanic families.

“It is remarkable in this day and age,” said Judy Jeffrey, the state’s top education official.

Enrollment has eroded since its peak in the early 1970s. The 2007-08 school year marked 10 years in a row of declines, Iowa Department of Education figures show.

A turnaround could bolster the budgets of some school districts, but it also could tax teachers, who will face more students who do not speak English.

The overall percentage of minority students in Iowa is 14.4 percent, up from 3.6 percent in 2006-2007 and 7.7 percent in 1998.

“After having carefully considered all of the evidence and arguments of counsel, however, the court concludes that [Rubashkin] is a serious risk of flight,” U.S. Magistrate Judge Jon Scoles wrote in the detention order this afternoon. “The government has met its burden by a preponderance of the evidence that there is no condition or combination of conditions which will reasonably assure [Rubashkin's] appearance at the time of trial.”

Rubashkin, who was originally arrested on Oct. 30 on immigration-related federal charges, was released with an ankle tracking device on a $1 million bond. The former executive has been detained in the custody of the U.S. Marshal’s Office since his arrest last Friday on bank fraud.

Scoles, in making the decision to keep Rubashkin detained until trial, discussed the “substantial” evidence against Rubashkin as well as discoveries in the Rubashkin home of $20,000 in cash, several silver coins and passports. Scoles also said that Rubashkin’s ties to the community of Postville would become more murky as the Agriprocessors plant continues negotiations with potential purchasers.

Scoles also took into consideration Isreal’s “Law of Return,” which provides citizenship to any Jew and members of his family who express desire to settle in the country.

“At the time of hearing, the government proffered that two supervisors at Agriprocessors fled following the search on May 12, 2008,” wrote Scoles. “It is believed that Hosam Amara, a Muslim with Israeli citizenship, fled to Israel, possibly through Canada.”

Rubashkin presented the court with roughly 275 letters of support from “the Postville area and throughout the nation.” A total of 30 people in Postville indicated they would be willing to pledge their homes’ equity, a total of roughly $2 million, to be used to secure an appearance bond for Rubashkin. Two relatives also told the court they would be willing to offer their homes’ equity, totaling roughly $1.5 million, also to secure a bond. Finally, Rubashkin offered the court an additional $225,000 cash deposit.

The detention order does not specify what will happen in relation to the earlier bond posted by Rubashkin. A trial on the immigration-related charges is scheduled to begin Jan. 20. No trial date has yet been set for the charges of bank fraud.

Sholom’s older brother, Moshe Rubashkin, was sentenced in 2002 to 15 months in prison and ordered to pay more than $225,000 in restitution for bank fraud. The case was linked to his ownership and operation of Montex Textiles, a Pennsylvania company. Moshe was also recently sentenced to 16 months for the company’s illegal storage of hazardous waste.

Last year, Agriprocessors executives agreed to pay $1.4 million to resolve allegations that the company participated in a scheme to hide another company’s assets during a bankruptcy.

Allou Distributors, a health and beauty distribution company owned by Herman Jacobowitz of New York, filed for bankruptcy in 2003. The filing came in the wake of a fire that destroyed Allou’s Brooklyn warehouse, a blaze eerily similar to the unexplained fire that gutted the Montex textile plant.

A trustee in the bankruptcy proceedings accused the Jacobowitz family of paying a total of $3.2 million to Agriprocessors and other Rubashkin entities for the sole purpose of hiding it from creditors. The trustee charged that that no services or products exchanged hands in the transaction.

When deposed in the case, Sholom Rubashkin said that his Postville real estate company, Nevel Properties, had given Allou nothing in return for the payments. Upon further questioning Rubashkin said that he hadn’t fully understood the question and promised to “get back to you on that.”

The attorney representing Rubashkin in the case was Bernard Feldman, the man who was named in September as the new chief executive officer of Agriprocessors.

Rubashkin later testified that Allou had sent payments to Agriprocessors in exchange for “surplus meat.”  He said that because the executive in charge of the account had “died at his desk” in 2003, the company could not provide details of the exchanges. Why Allou, a distributor of health and beauty products, would need millions of dollars of meat was not explained.

While never charged with wrongdoing, the Rubashkin family nonetheless agreed to settle the allegations by paying $1.4 million for disbursement by the trustee.

Jacobowitz was sentenced to 15 years in prison, ordered to pay restitution of $177 million and forfeit an additional $130 million. His siblings, Jacob and Aaron Jacobowitz, were each sentenced to 10 years in prison.

In 1995, Moshe and his father, Aaron, were found guilty of collecting union dues from their employees at the Cherry Hill Textile firm without sending the collected monies on to the United Production Workers Union. The National Labor Relations Board ordered the Rubashkins repay the money with interest.