SC poultry plant manager faces immigration charge - WRAL.com
The manager of a Greenville poultry plant has been indicted on a charge he knowingly hired illegal immigrants as the investigation into hiring practices at Columbia Farms took another step up the management ladder.Barry Cronic began hiring illegal workers in 2000 and kept hiring them until a plant raid in October 2008, according to an indictment handed up Wednesday.
Last October, federal agents raided the plant during a shift change. Employees screamed and scrambled to get away, but agents blocked the entrances and found more than 300 workers who were in the U.S. illegally, most of them from Mexico or Central American countries, authorities said.
Personnel manager Elaine Crump also was indicted Wednesday on a similar charge. She already faces 20 counts of telling workers to use falsified immigration documents and has pleaded not guilty.
Cronic's indictment marked another step up the organizational chart at Columbia Farms. The plant is owned by House of Raeford. Prosecutors have refused to say if the probe would eventually end up at corporate headquarters.
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