Posted on 01/30/2009 3:38:20 PM PST by SmithL
The former managers of the Vallejo Empire Buffet were sentenced Thursday on federal charges for housing and putting illegal aliens to work in their restaurant.
Rui Yang Lin, 48, and Bi Xia Ni, 46, were each placed on 36 months'
probation and fined $36,000 after pleading guilty in October to hiring 12 illegal workers between March and
September last year.
The sentencing and fines were on top of an earlier $36,000 penalty each paid before Thursday.
Though the listed Empire Buffet owner was Lin's daughter, prosecutors said he and his wife ran most of the day-to-day restaurant operations.
The undocumented workers were discovered in September during an immigration sweep in Vallejo and at King's Buffet in Vacaville, netting a total 21 undocumented adult workers from China, Mexico, Guatemala, Indonesia, Singapore and Honduras.
The couple also forfeited a family home on the 3900 block of Glacier Court in Vallejo that was used to house some of their workers, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.
U.S. District Judge Morrison C. England reportedly gave the couple "significant credit for promptly accepting responsibility for their crimes," according to the release.
Another immigration sweep defendent, Rui Tao Lin, owner of the King's Buffet, also pleaded guilty in November to charges of unlawful employment of aliens and mail fraud.
His sentencing hearing is scheduled for Feb. 6 in Sacramento.
Someone in California got in trouble for hiring illegals? I am *SPEECHLESS*. There’s got to be more to this story that they are not telling us.
Geez go to any Chinese buffett and they are ALL illegals and the Red Army owns every restaurant.
I never go to those restaurants ever.
Good. I hope someone breaks this guy’s legs.
Good Gawd....Why am I not surprised these were just more foreigners involved here beside the damn illegal aliens.
That's interesting. How did they get in the country? Student Visas? Expired H1B's?
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