Manufacturer Gets Jail Time and More Than A Million In Fines For Immigration Violations
The president of a Massachusetts military goods manufacturing company will pay a fine and serve up to 18 months in prison to settle charges stemming from a raid by federal immigration officials in March of 2007. The company will also have to pay a fine of $1.5 million. Under the terms of a plea agreement entered Nov. 3. MBI and its president and principal shareholder, pleaded guilty to several charges in U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts alleging that they hired illegal aliens, helped to shield them from detection, failed to pay them full overtime, and fraudulently misled the government. The company specialized in the manufacture of handbags and leather goods. Between 2001 and 2006, MBI won a number of Department of Defense contracts worth approximately $230 million. As a result of these defense contracts, the federal government said, MBI increased its workforce from approximately 85 employees in 2001 to approximately 650 people in 2006.
The company president and two managers were arrested and charged with various violations of federal criminal law and the Immigration and Nationality Act in a criminal information March 6, the day officials from ICE raided the worksite and detained at least 361 alleged illegal aliens. The three were subsequently indicted in August 2007 by a grand jury on charges of conspiracy to harbor and conspiracy to hire illegal aliens. In a plea agreement entered on Nov. 3, MBI pleaded guilty to 18 counts of knowingly hiring illegal aliens, helping to harbor and shield illegal aliens from detection from authorities from 2004 
to 2007; fraudulently misrepresenting Social Security numbers and committing mail fraud when it submitted Social Security numbers to the IRS and Social Security Administration knowing that many of the numbers had to be false given that many of the company's employees were illegal aliens; and failing to pay many employees overtime from 2005 to 2007. MBI's president pleaded guilty to helping harbor and conceal illegal aliens by allowing the company to submit false Social Security numbers for employees to the government as if they were real.
On July 29, 2008, the owner of a Florida painting company pleaded guilty to 
one count of harboring illegal aliens in violation of the Immigration and Nationality Act (See United States v. Tinoco-Tinoco, M.D. Fla., No. 3:08-cr-00133-HLA-MCR, plea entered 7/29/08). Ruben Tinoco-Tinoco was indicted in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida in April following the arrests of 34 illegal aliens at various residences in Jacksonville (2 WIR 268, 5/5/08 ). According to the plea agreement, 29 of those aliens said they worked for Tinoco-Tinoco at Taurus Painting Inc., in Jacksonville, Fla. 
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement-led investigation revealed that from February 2007 through March 2008 numerous alleged illegal aliens were picked up at residences and driven to worksites in cars owned by Tinoco-Tinoco or his business, ICE said. Tinoco-Tinoco faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and $250,000 in fines. In addition, under the terms of the plea agreement, Tinoco-Tinoco agreed to pay $50,000 and surrender two houses in forfeiture. "The recruitment, harboring and transportation of illegal aliens are very serious crimes that we will simply not tolerate," Robert Weber, special agent in charge of the ICE Office of Investigations in Tampa, said in a July 29 statement. "My office devotes significant resources to identify, prosecute and incarcerate these criminals and is determined to continue identifying and shutting down vulnerabilities to our immigration system such as harboring illegal aliens," Weber said. 