Firm's Owner Gets Prison Time For Hiring 61 Illegal Immigrants
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The owner of a Southern California furniture manufacturing company has been sentenced to 10 months in federal prison for hiring illegal immigrants.
Prosecutors say 57-year-old Brownwood Furniture owner Rick Vartanian was told earlier that 61 of his 73 workers at the Rancho Cucamonga firm were illegal immigrants.
In November 2009, Vartanian told U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents that the illegal immigrants no longer worked for Brownwood Furniture, but investigators discovered 18 illegal immigrants were still working for him.
The Los Angeles Times says Vartanian, who was convicted of obstruction of justice and employing illegal immigrants, was sentenced Monday by a Los Angeles federal judge.
Brownwood Furniture vice president Michael Patrick Eberly pleaded guilty to employing illegal immigrants and he was placed on a years' probation and fined $10,000.
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