A federal judge conspired with the Bush Department of Justice to plan the largest immigration raid ever in the United States, and then presided over the trial of the plant’s manager, eventually sentencing him beyond even prosecutors’ recommendation.
New documents show Linda Reade, the chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Iowa, was involved in the planning of the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement raid on the Agriprocessors kosher meatpacking plant at least six months before it occurred in May 2008. She asked for briefings from law enforcement and went as far as to ensure the raid was conducted around her vacation schedule.
But the judge never said a word of this to the defense lawyers for Sholom Rubashkin, the Agriprocessors manager, when she presided over his trial on bank fraud. She didn’t recuse herself from the case, either.
Rubashkin was convicted of causing $20 million in loses to a bank because he overstated Agriprocessors’ assets to get a larger loan. The raid destroyed Agriprocessors and the bank then called the loan. Reade sentenced Rubashkin in June to 27 years in prison. That’s more than Jeffrey Skilling, convicted of causing $80 million in losses from Enron, who got 24 years. And Dennis Kozlowski, the former CEO of Tyco, got 8 to 25 years in prison for a $150 million fraud.
Rubashkin’s sentence is extreme, especially for a first-time, non-violent offender. After all, six former U.S. attorneys general sent Judge Reade a letter arguing against a multi-decade sentence for Rubashkin before she announced her decision. And prosecutors asked for 25 years.
“Without disclosing to defense counsel her meetings with the U.S. attorney and the support she expressed for the raid, she presided at Mr. Rubashkin’s trial, and then immediately had him imprisoned, and sentenced him to two years more in prison than the prosecution requested,” Rubashkin’s attorney, Nathan Lewin, said in a press release Thursday.
Judge Reade told the defense lawyers that she engaged in “logistical cooperation” with law enforcement officials for the raid, which included prosecuting more than 450 illegal immigrants who worked at Agriprocessors. The Justice Department set up a temporary courthouse at the National Cattle Congress in Waterloo, Iowa, to process the immigrants.
But Reade clearly did more than coordinate moving her office. She told law enforcement officials she was “willing to support the operation in any way possible.” She participated in a meeting that discussed “an overview of charging strategies, numbers of anticipated arrests and prosecutions, logistics, the movement of detainees, and other issues related to the [Agriprocessors] investigation and operation.”
And just before the raid, she asked for a “final gameplan” from prosecutors and “requested a briefing on how the operation will be conducted.”
And Bush Justice Department officials concealed the truth about Reade’s involvement to Congress as well.
The new documents are just coming to light because of a Freedom of Information Act request that has just been fulfilled for Rubashkin’s defense team, even though it was filed before the trial began. Rubashkin’s attorneys say they had to sue the Department of Homeland Security to get all the information.
Rubashkin’s legal team has asked for a new trial, and want a different judge to rule on whether Judge Reade should have disqualified herself from the case. They are also appealing the conviction and sentence Reade handed down.
This case has gotten a lot of media attention recently, with former Rep. Bob Barr calling on the Justice Department to investigate concerns about sentencing disparities. But now it seems we have a better understanding of why that is.