By Jeff Lehr

jlehr@joplinglobe.com

A federal jury has convicted a Monett woman who was involved in hiring employees at a poultry-processing plant in Butterfield of inducing an illegal immigrant to enter the United States and harboring an illegal immigrant.

Dora Ruiz, 33, was found guilty Tuesday at the end of a two-day trial in U.S. District Court in Springfield on two counts contained in a federal indictment handed up Oct. 16. Ruiz faces the possibility of up to 10 years in prison for the convictions.

It was the first trial conviction obtained by the U.S. attorney’s office for the Western District of Missouri related to a probe conducted in May 2007 at George’s Processing Inc. in Barry County. Another former George’s Processing employee, Sinthia Valdez-Ramirez, 23, pleaded guilty earlier this month to aiding and abetting others in committing aggravated identity theft.

Both women formerly worked in the plant’s human-resources department and were involved in hiring employees.

“These convictions mark an important development in our continued commitment to pursuing employers who knowingly hire illegal aliens,” U.S. Attorney John Wood said in a news release Wednesday.

Agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the U.S. Marshals Service arrested 136 alleged illegal immigrants from Mexico and Guatemala at the plant on administrative immigration charges while executing a federal search warrant on May 22, 2007. Twenty-eight of the employees arrested also were charged with immigration and identity-theft crimes.

Ruiz was found guilty of aiding and abetting others to induce an illegal immigrant to enter the United States and to reside in the country between Dec. 14, 2005, and May 22, 2007.

Evidence presented at her trial showed that Ruiz assisted plant employees by completing their employment eligibility verification forms, known as I-9s, and translating from English to Spanish. The prosecution maintained that Ruiz knew that many of the employees were illegal immigrants who used fraudulently obtained Social Security numbers and identity documents to get hired.

In pleading guilty on Jan. 8, Valdez-Ramirez admitted that between July 4, 2006, and May 22, 2007, she aided and abetted an employee to use another person’s identity, including a Missouri non-driver license number and a Social Security card, to represent herself as a U.S. citizen.

Still out

A sentencing date will be designated after completion of a pre-sentence investigation.