Attorneys lay out cases in Agriprocessors child labor trial

UPDATED: Prosecutors in the state's child labor trial against former Agriprocessors executive Sholom Rubashkin started their case by introducing jurors to children who worked at the postville plant.

Assistant Attorney General Laura Roan flashed photos of the teens, outlining when they started at the Postville meat packing operation and detailing what they did.

There was Elizandaro Gomez Lopez, who was 16 when he began working at Agriprocessors. He used electric sheers to process chickens.

It was fast work, Roan said, and Gomez was pushed to process 90 chickens a minute.

Henry Lopez Calel worked there twice, once at age 14 and again at 16.

The names and photos went on until the state made its way through the 31 minors who held jobs at the kosher slaughterhouse. Roan said many worked with electric saws and dry ice, and it was rare that they worked fewer than 40 hours in a week.

Many worked 16 hours a day, six days a week, she said.

This didn't happen in a third-world country, it happened in Iowa, Roan told jurors.

"This man is guilty of all of the crimes because we say 'not in Iowa. Not here,'" Roan said.

Defense attorney Montgomery Brown told jurors his client didn't want children working at the plant.

He noted Agriprocessors was under pressure from unionization efforts, an animal rights organization and a Minnesota-based kosher certification group. There were also visits from officials with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

With all that at risk, allowing minors to work at the plant would have meant the death of the company, he told jurors.

Brown said management at the plant was dysfunctional and the gatekeepers in the human resources department were flawed and weren't doing their jobs.

He said that over the years the plant has given tours to campaigning politicians, city officials and OSHA inspectors, and no one raised concerns.

When Iowa Department of Labor inspectors came up with names of suspected minors, they refused to share them with Agriprocessors officials, so the plant wasn' able to fire them, Brown said.

He said the labor department was planning its own raid at the plant and wanted to make a big splash, but the U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement beat them to the punch.

Finally, Brown said, Agriprocessors knew the May 2008 immigration raid was in the offing, as evidenced by attorney letters to the federal government offering to cooperate. If Sholom Rubashkin knew there were minors working at the plant, wouldn't he tell some to get them out before the raid, Brown asked jurors.

Testimony is scheduled to start after lunch. The trial is expected to last about three weeks.

Rubashkin faces 83 child labor violation charges.

-- Jeff Reinitz, Waterlo0-Cedar Falls Courier