Projo 7 to 7 News Blog

By Karen Lee Ziner
Journal staff writer

BOSTON - The former head of a New Bedford factory pleaded guilty this morning to a felony criminal charge of knowingly harboring and concealing illegal immigrants, stemming from a 2007 immigration raid at the Michael Bianco Inc. plant.

Francesco Insolia, founder and former president of the Bianco company, entered into a plea agreement before Judge Douglas P. Woodlock at U.S. District Court, Boston, but Woodlock reserved acceptance of the plea until a sentencing hearing scheduled for January 27, 2009.

Insolia faces 12 to 18 months in federal prison and a $30,000 fine at sentencing.

The company, which has been sold and renamed Honors USA since the raid, also admitted to several separate counts and has agreed to pay a $2 million fine. Speaking on behalf of the company, Elaine Rich, a company director, entered guilty pleas to harboring of illegal immigrants, Social Security fraud, failure to pay overtime, knowingly hiring illegal immigrants and mail fraud.

Immigration agents rounded up more than 300 suspected illegal immigrant workers during the March 6, 2007 raid at the Bianco factory on West Rodney French Boulevard.

The workers were helping Bianco fulfill almost $230 million in government contracts to manufacture rucksacks and ammunition pouches for U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Insolia was indicted last year for conspiracy to hire illegal aliens, as well as knowingly harboring them for purposes of executing the company's military contracts.

Through a plea agreement hammered out in August, the conspiracy charge against Insolia was eliminated and the potential prison time diminished.

Last week, the U.S. Attorney's office in Boston filed an information charge against Insolia for one count of harboring and shielding aliens "in reckless disregard of the fact that the aliens had come to, entered and remained in the United States illegally." The charge states he did so "for commercial advantage and private financial gain."

The information indicated that the government had reached an agreement with Insolia and he had agreed to waive a jury trial.

During this morning's session, Assistant U.S. Attorney Donald Cabell said if the case had gone to trial, the government would have presented evidence the Insolia knew he had hired illegal immigrants based on the circumstances of a December 2005 raid at a New Bedford fish processing plant.

During that raid, friends and relatives called workers at Bianco to warn them that immigration officials could be coming, prompting many of the Bianco workers to flee, according to Cabell. After discovering that his workers had fled, Insolia allowed the company to submit false Social Security numbers to the IRS and Social Security Administration, according to Cabell.

After the raid, workers alleged that Insolia and his managers had exploited them and subjected them to poor working conditions.

Insolia issued a public statement that called those allegations "simply untrue," and produced a video that he said showed amenable working conditions inside the plant. He also extended his "heartfelt sympathy to the families of our loyal workers whose lives have been terribly disrupted" by the arrests.

Handling of the raid sparked widespread criticism

Michael Bianco Inc. sold the New Bedford plant last November 2007 to Eagle Industries, a longtime Bianco competitor based in Fenton, Mo.. The sale involved transfer of the lease for the plant, and sale of all Bianco equipment in the New Bedford, as well as a facility that Insolia had been building in Puerto Rico before the raid.

 Tags  illegal immigrants New Bedford Mass.

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