Firm ordered to pay $1 million for hiring 17 undocumented workers at Independence, LA mushroom farm

After a murder led investigators to discover 17 undocumented workers employed at Red Hill Mushroom Farm in Independence, U.S. Attorney Kenneth announced Tuesday that the corporation in charge, M.D. Basciani and Sons Inc., will be made to pay $1 million.

U.S. District Judge Jay C. Zainey sentenced the company to three years of probation and ordered it to cooperate with future immigration inspections, in addition to forfeiting the money acquired from illegally employing undocumented workers, U.S. Attorney Kenneth A. Polite said. “We will insist that every dollar in illegal proceeds is forfeited so that this illegal conduct does not pay,” Polite said in a news release.

When a man was shot to death Dec. 13, 2012 in a trailer park north of Tickfaw, an investigation led detectives to a potential suspect working at Red Hill Mushroom Farm. The next month, when Tangipahoa Parish deputies paid a visit to the farm, they found the suspect to be an undocumented immigrant, according to the affidavit of probable cause filed into court records Oct. 8.

Later, federal agents inspected the farm, and in June 2013, agents gave the company a notice that named 17 unauthorized workers employed at Red Hill Mushroom Farm.

Read more: http://theadvocate.com/news/12915985-79/firm-ordered-to-pay-1 (Baton Rouge Advocate)

Cross-posted in Omaha Steve's Labor Movement Group.