Rubashkin found not guilty by jury

by Sharon Drahn,
Postville Herald

The jury in the district court case against former Agriprocessers manager Sholom Rubashkin reached a verdict Monday, June 7. The seven jurors returned to the courtroom at 1 p.m. to announce a decision of not guilty on all 67 misdemeanor child labor charges.
The judge had made the unusual decision to keep on seven jurors during deliberations due to the illness of one juror, as a unanimous decision was required to reach a verdict. Therefore, if the jury had been reduced to six and the juror who had been ill was unable to continue, the case would have been thrown out.
The scheduled three-week trial stretched into a fifth week because of several delays, including Jewish holidays, a court furlough due to budget cuts and Rubashkin’s hospitalization with an infection. The defense rested its case last Tuesday, June 1 in the child labor case. Leah Rubashkin, Sholom’s wife, was the last witness to take the stand prior to closing arguments.
Also prior to hearing closing arguments, Judge Nathan Callahan said he was dismissing charges attached to five alleged minors listed in the complaint who did not testify. He said he was going to issue a ruling on the rest of the counts after the verdict is read.
Assistant Iowa Attorney General Laura Roan gave the closing arguments for the State. She told the jury the federal I-9 work authorization forms should be used to determine if the 26 alleged child laborers in fact worked at Agriprocessors between September 9, 2007 and May 12, 2008.
The prosecution ended its rebuttal by saying, “We all want to live in a country in which our laws are obeyed, in which children don’t work in slaughterhouses, in which children out of poverty aren’t exploited for profit.”
The defense argued Rubashkin did not know of the minors at the plant because it is difficult to gauge the ages of Guatemalan and Mexican workers who used fake IDs to gain employment.
The defense attacked the credibility of former employees because they lied about their age to gain employment and because they have applied for or have received U-Visas, which in part requires them to cooperate with the prosecution.
The defense spent a great deal of its case attempting to discredit former supervisor Matthew Derrick, the only witness who said he had a conversation or any communication with Rubashkin about children at the plant. In the effort to discredit Derrick, witnesses said he (Derrick) sexually harassed at least one of the former child laborers and disparaged his Latino workers behind their back.
During his closing arguments,  defense attorney Weinhardt urged the four-woman, three-man jury to put aside the troubling and disturbing testimony of the alleged child laborers and focus on whether or not Rubashkin is criminally responsible for willfully allowing children to work in the plant. He said the case is solely about what Rubashkin actually knew, not what he should have known.
Obviously, from their conclusion, the jurors did not think Rubashkin was criminally responsible for willfully allowing children to work at Agriprocessors.