{"id":55159,"date":"2017-12-21T05:12:20","date_gmt":"2017-12-21T05:12:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/?p=55159"},"modified":"2017-12-21T05:12:20","modified_gmt":"2017-12-21T05:12:20","slug":"president-commutes-sentence-of-iowa-meatpacking-executive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/news\/president-commutes-sentence-of-iowa-meatpacking-executive.html","title":{"rendered":"President Commutes Sentence of Iowa Meatpacking Executive"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Commutes Sentence of Iowa Meatpacking Executive<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

President Commutes Sentence of Iowa Meatpacking Executive: President Trump on Wednesday commuted the prison sentence of Sholom Rubashkin, whose Iowa meatpacking plant was the target of a huge immigration raid in 2008, and whose 27-year prison sentence angered many Orthodox Jews.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr. Rubashkin made national headlines nine years ago after federal agents arrived by helicopter at the Agriprocessors plant in Postville, Iowa, and detained nearly 400 undocumented immigrants, including several children, who were working there. Mr. Rubashkin was the company\u2019s chief executive, and the plant had been the largest kosher meatpacking operation in the country. He was later convicted of bank fraud in federal court.<\/span><\/p>\n

Many Jewish leaders have rallied behind Mr. Rubashkin, whose treatment they said was unfair, perhaps even anti-Semitic, and whose sentence they considered unduly harsh and out of line with what other white-collar criminals received. Mr. Rubashkin had tried for years to get a reduced sentence, but was repeatedly turned down by the courts.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cRubashkin has remained strong throughout his ordeal and convinced he would eventually obtain justice,\u201d said Guy R. Cook, the lead trial lawyer for Mr. Rubashkin, in an email on Wednesday night. \u201cRubashkin and his family are overjoyed he is free and will be reunited with them.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In a statement announcing the commutation, White House officials said they had received letters from more than 30 members of Congress, including several members of both parties, supporting an examination of the case.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe president\u2019s review of Mr. Rubashkin\u2019s case and commutation decision were based on expressions of support from members of Congress and a broad cross-section of the legal community,\u201d the White House statement said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Senator Orrin Hatch, Republican of Utah, said on Twitter that the commutation was \u201ca real Hanukkah miracle\u201d and that he was \u201cproud to be a part of a large, bipartisan group\u201d that had pushed for that outcome.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr. Trump\u2019s decision was not a pardon, and Mr. Rubashkin, who had been imprisoned in Otisville, N.Y., must still pay restitution and complete a term of supervised release. The commutation came after years of lobbying by a number of prominent lawyers and politicians who considered the sentence a miscarriage of justice.<\/span><\/p>\n

Alan M. Dershowitz, an emeritus law professor at Harvard and a noted author, said he had been working on the case for about five years and had personally asked Mr. Trump to consider commutation. Mr. Dershowitz said he had made a similar request to Barack Obama during his presidency, but that he had declined.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just compassion and justice,\u201d Mr. Dershowitz said. \u201cThis was a bipartisan thing. It was a nonpartisan thing. And it was the right thing to do.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

But the commutation was not universally cheered. Robert Teig, a former federal prosecutor in Iowa, said that Mr. Rubashkin\u2019s sentence \u201cwas what he earned because of his conduct\u201d and that \u201cit\u2019s a sad state when politics are allowed to interfere with the justice system.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cReally, this is 180 degrees contrary to a tough position on illegal immigration,\u201d said Mr. Teig, who said Mr. Rubashkin had probably been Iowa\u2019s largest employer of undocumented immigrants.<\/span><\/p>\n

The high-profile immigration raid eventually led to the closure of the meatpacking plant in tiny Postville, which had become an unlikely hub of Orthodox Jewish life in the Midwest.<\/span><\/p>\n

Around 300 employees of the plant, many of whom were Guatemalan, served prison sentences for identity theft, and several managers and supervisors were convicted of felony charges of harboring illegal immigrants. The immigration-related charges against Mr. Rubashkin were dropped after he was convicted of fraud. Prosecutors in his case said he had fabricated collateral for loans, causing the banks to lose more than $26 million.<\/span><\/p>\n

Source:-\u00a0https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/12\/20\/us\/president-trump-iowa-commutation.html<\/span><\/p>\n

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