Publish PostIn the biggest workplace immigration raid this year, federal agents swept into a kosher meat plant on Monday in Postville, Iowa, and arrested more than 300 workers.
The authorities said the workers were suspected of being in the United States illegally or of having participated in identity theft and the fraudulent use of Social Security numbers.
A spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement would not say how many people had been rounded up beyond the initial 300 or whether the management and owners of the plant, AgriProcessors, would face criminal charges.
The plant has 800 to 900 people and is the country's largest producer of meat that is glatt kosher, widely regarded as the highest standard of cleanliness.
The plant shut temporarily.
The agents set up a perimeter around the 60-acre plant, in northeastern Iowa, and entered on the morning shift, carrying out two search warrants, federal authorities said. An affidavit filed in court before the raid by the Homeland Security Department cited "the issuance of 697 criminal complaints and arrest warrants against persons believed to be current employees" and to have acted criminally.
The affidavit said a former plant supervisor had told investigators that a methamphetamine laboratory had operated at the plant and that some employees had carried weapons to the plant. The former supervisor, the affidavit said, estimated that 80 percent of the employees were in the United States illegally.
A spokesman for Representative Bruce Braley, Democrat of Iowa, said the number of arrests was expected to increase, perhaps even double, as the investigation continued.
Federal officials leased an expansive fairground area in nearby Waterloo to process and house the arrested workers. Among people at the fairgrounds and in Postville, "there is a lot of fear," said Prof. Mark A. Grey, who focuses on immigration at the University of Northern Iowa.
"It's absolutely devastating to the local economy," Professor Grey said.
In a news release, Matt M. Dummermuth, the United States attorney for the Northern District of Iowa, called the sweep "the largest operation of its type ever in Iowa."
Federal authorities have been conducting workplace raids across the country in recent years, with the pace accelerating since the failure of immigration legislation last year in Congress.
The raid had been planned for months and was conducted in coordination with local law enforcement, according to the news release, released jointly by Claude Arnold, special agent in charge for the ICE regional office in Bloomington, Minn.
Calls to AgriProcessors, a global giant in the kosher meat market and the major employer in Postville, a town of 2,200 people, were not answered. A lawyer for the plant did not return a call.
According to a company Web site, Aaron Rubashkin, whose family controls the plant, bought a defunct meat factory in Postville in 1987 and turned it into the present plant.
According to Menachem Lubinsky, the editor of Kosher Today and a marketing consultant, AgriProcessors provides 60 percent of the kosher retail meat and 40 percent of the kosher poultry nationally, and most retail chains depend on it for supply. Mr. Lubinsky said the company was also the sole American packing plant whose products are accepted in Israel.
The raid was not the first moment in the national spotlight for the plant. In 2004, it was asked to change its slaughtering methods after an animal rights group secretly documented workers cutting the throats of living steers and letting them bleed to death.
The company has also been a target of environmental pollution complaints.
MIAMI
Burger King said Tuesday it fired two employees following the disclosure that an executive secretly posted blogs slamming a farmworker advocacy group.
The Miami-based fast-food chain did not name the individuals who were fired. It also said it is discontinuing the use of a private investigation firm whose president allegedly posed as a student activist to infiltrate the farmworker group and its supporters.
Burger King is in a public relations feud with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers over how to improve wages and working conditions for Florida's tomato pickers.
"Following an investigation, Burger King Corporation has terminated two employees who participated in unauthorized activity on public Web sites which did not reflect the company's views and which were in violation of company policy," the company said in a statement.
The company owned by Burger King Holdings Inc. said Tuesday it hopes to meet with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers soon to find ways to ensure decent wages and working conditions for the region's harvesters.
Coalition co-founder Lucas Benitez said in a statement the group welcomed Burger King's actions but said more needed to be done "to clear the path toward a sincere partnership for more humane conditions in Burger King's tomato supply chain."
Burger King's announcement comes a week after The Associated Press confirmed an e-mail it received in January from an individual purporting to support the coalition appeared to be sent from the company's server.
In March, an individual using the same password-protected e-mail account sent a message to a student group that supports the coalition, according to an AP investigation. That individual claimed to be a University of Virginia graduate student named "Kevin" who wanted to help the coalition boost farmworker wages. The individual asked to listen in on the group's strategy call regarding efforts to pressure Burger King to pay more for its Florida tomatoes.
When asked to identify himself further by the AP and the alliance, the individual did not respond.
Later that month, Cara Schaffer, head of the private investigation firm Diplomatic Tactical Services, also posed as a student interested in the coalition's activities, according to the student group. Her company's Web site says it specializes in labor relations, including covert and overt surveillance.
Burger King said Tuesday it "discontinued the services provided by Diplomatic Tactical Services Inc. for violation of the company's code of conduct."
The company says it had contracted the firm to provide general safety advice and security services during high profile events such as global conventions and shareholders' meetings.
A local paper identified Web postings linked to Burger King Vice President Stephen Grover describing the coalition as "an attack organization lining the leaders (sic) pockets ... They make up issues and collect money from dupes that believe their story. To (sic) bad the people protesting don't have a clue regarding the facts. A bunch of fools!" He used his middle school daughter's screen name to make the posting.
Burger King's Chief Executive Officer John Chidsey said he was distressed to learn of the allegations.
"Neither I nor any of my senior management team were aware of or condone the unauthorized activities in question," he said in a company statement.
In a speech last fall at Davidson College, Chidsey said the media has misrepresented the issue of Florida tomato picker wages and conditions and that the average tomato picker earns $12.56 an hour. He said farmworkers are paid better than many Burger King restaurant workers.
The Immokalee coalition has long disputed Chidsey's assertions, and U.S. lawmakers have called for an investigation into worker wages and conditions.
The coalition wants Burger King to join McDonald's Corp. and Yum Brands Inc., which have already agreed to pay more for their Florida tomatoes, so long as growers pass the extra money on to their workers. Those agreements also call on the companies to work with the coalition to establish a code of conduct for their suppliers.
But since last fall, those deals have existed on paper only after the industry group representing Florida tomato growers refused to allow its members to participate.
When a Morris County municipal court judge was stopped by police, he tried to avoid arrest for drunken driving by revealing he sided with police in his courtroom, even when a case "could have gone either way," a letter recounted, according to an amended lawsuit filed yesterday in U.S. District Court in Newark.
The letter to Superior Court Judge Theodore Bozonelis is dated Nov. 16, 2007. In it, Roxbury Patrolman Jonathan Edmunds recalls what George Korpita told him on the night he was arrested for DWI.
"When the cops beat the ... out of a guy, I do the right thing. I'll never take care of cops again ... My whole ... life, I've taken care of cops, my whole life ... never again," Korpita said according to the lawsuit.
Korpita -- who served as a judge for Dover, Victory Gardens and Rockaway Borough -- also told the patrolman that when cops came into his courtroom, where the cases could have "gone either way," that he "always ruled for the cops." He added that he had "helped out" Jefferson and Roxbury township police in the past, the letter to Bozonelis said.
Sgt. Kevin Carroll, who was also present during the DWI arrest on Nov. 6, wrote a letter to Roxbury Police Chief Mark Noll recounting similar comments, the lawsuit said. Korpita told the officer during the arrest that "all he is asking for is professional courtesy," Carroll wrote to Noll, according to the lawsuit.
The letters were used as evidence to amend a lawsuit involving a dispute between Korpita and Dover securities broker Warren Hartzman.
Last August, Hartzman sued Korpita, claiming the judge abused his power to imprison him overnight for scratching the judge's Maserati in a Rockaway parking lot. Hartzman claims Korpita called police and had him arrested.
Hartzman is suing the police department for false arrest and imprisonment and malicious prosecution. He claims the matter has damaged his reputation, causing him to suffer severe mental anguish, stress, humiliation and pain. In a separate legal filing with the municipality, Hartzman is seeking $5 million.
As a result of the two letters, the lawsuit has been expanded to include Rockaway Borough, alleging there was a "regular practice of violating individual civil rights" in the Korpita-run court in Rockaway Borough.
"It is now clear that Rockaway had a regular practice of violating individual civil rights," according to legal filings.
Hartzman's attorney William Pinilis declined comment yesterday.
Woodbridge attorney Blair Zwillman, who represented Korpita in the 2007 drunken-driving incident in Roxbury, yesterday questioned the importance of the judge's alleged comments made to Roxbury police.
"I think it's much ado about nothing," Zwillman said. "This man had a .22 blood-alcohol level and pled guilty to drunken driving. The statements, if he made them, should be taken in the context of his state of mind at that time."
Neither Korpita, nor Rockaway Borough Mayor Kathyann Snyder could be reached for comment last night.
Since Hartzman first filed his lawsuit, Korpita, 48, has been embroiled in legal troubles.
In December, Korpita pleaded guilty to DWI and to threatening a public servant. Morris County Prosecutor Robert A. Bianchi lauded the officers for following through with the arrest and noted Korpita made similar threats to Dover police officers regarding his DWI arrest.
In February, a Superior Court judge found Korpita guilty of using his official position to avoid a drunken driving arrest in Roxbury. Korpita was ordered to never serve in a public office again.
In February, Korpita was charged with a second DWI in Sparta. That case is still pending.
Leslie Kwoh may be reached at lkwoh@starledger.com or (973) 539-7910.
