Fishing company operator sentenced to jail for hiring illegal immigrants
NORFOLK
The vice president of a Newport News fishing company was sentenced today to 90 days in prison on top of nearly $7 million in fines and forfeitures that she and her company have agreed to pay to settle charges that the company employed illegal immigrants on its vessels.
Yvonne Michelle Peabody, who runs the day-to-day operations of the Peabody Corp., previously pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor charges and has cooperated with the government in several other criminal matters, including a drug case, a prosecutor said.
U.S. District Judge Raymond A. Jackson also sentenced her to 120 days of home detention with electronic monitoring after her release from custody and ordered her to pay a $50,000 fine.
Her father and company founder, William F. Peabody, who is semi-retired, was sentenced as well today, but Jackson spared him jail time as he had a relatively minor role in the crimes. He was sentenced to 150 days of home confinement, three years of probation and a $100,000 fine.
The company agreed to pay $6.75 million in fines and forfeitures, which represents the profits earned over a four-year period while employing more than 125 illegal immigrants to work their fishing vessels.
Either I am really and truly naive, or my friends that work or have worked at the Perdue and/or Tyson plants here in Accomack County are very convincing liars. According to them eligibility to work in the US is carefully checked to work in the plant.
I don't doubt that many of the "growers" use illegals, but I do know of a couple that take Perdue's threat of pulling their contracts seriously if they get caught with illegals in their employ.
There are 5 Perdue contracted chicken houses diagonally across the road from me. The guy that manages/maintains them happens to be the father of my daughter's best friend and the husband of my best friend. He and I have had this type of discussion nmerous times. The guy he works for has a total of 17 chicken house, all contracted with Perdue, and not single employee is an illegal. He won't even allow sub-contractors who come in to haul out the manure to have illegals. He takes the threat of having his contract with Perdue pulled that seriously.