This article appeared in the Sunday Des Moines Register.
It amazes me how one can be convinced to "do things better and right"
when faced with a federal prison sentence.
(Of course, evidence remains to be seen...)
http://desmoinesregister.com/business/stories/c4789013/22134575.html
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DeCoster attempts to remake his image
By MARK SIEBERT
Register Staff Writer
08/31/2003
Clarion, Ia. - Most Iowans know the notorious Jack DeCoster.
He's the big-time egg and hog producer who just pleaded guilty to
federal immigration charges and paid a record $2.1 million in
penalties. He's a "habitual violator" who's banned from building more
hog confinements in Iowa after repeatedly breaking environmental laws.
He's the one whom nobody wanted to be associated with in last year's
gubernatorial race between Tom Vilsack and Doug Gross. He's the one
who's paid millions in fines for transgressions at his egg-production
plants in Maine and his Iowa egg and hog operations.
But what if he changed his ways? What if he's made an about-face?
Austin Jackson DeCoster, 68, earlier this month told U.S. District
Judge Mark Bennett - a judge who could send him to federal prison -
that he's changed.
"I have worked very hard in the last few years now to do things better
and right," DeCoster said, according to one report.
An unusual collection of supporters are behind him. They back
DeCoster's contention of a changing attitude.
DeCoster hired former Iowa attorney general and gubernatorial candidate
Bonnie Campbell to make sure he follows through on the terms of a $1.5
million settlement reached with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission. The agency sued DeCoster in 2001 on behalf of Hispanic
women who alleged they were raped and sexually harassed at his egg
plants in Clarion.
Des Moines attorney and influential Democratic Party donor Jerry
Crawford has been added to DeCoster's legal team.
An advocate for migrant workers in Maine - who helped sue DeCoster to
improve working conditions there - now vouches for the man.
Ben Guiliani said he has been at odds with DeCoster before. But he said
he'd seen an about-face.
"It's a new day, and I think it comes from Mr. DeCoster down," Guiliani
said last week from Maine. "I can go to the farm unannounced. I can go
to offices, to a plant, to a barn, and nobody will give me any trouble
for doing it."
In May, U.S. Attorney Charles Larson filed two misdemeanor charges
against DeCoster for helping hire employees between 1997 and 2002 that
he knew were not authorized to work in the United States.
One of the counts involved Ramiro Salgado-Izquierdo, a crew chief at
one of DeCoster's egg plants who went by the name "Virus."
Virus was among the more than 100 undocumented workers rounded up by
immigration agents in raids in 2001 and 2002. According to court
documents, Virus told undocumented workers to hide out in DeCoster
plants for two nights to avoid detection.
DeCoster's culpability, the government said, was not in the hiring
practices but in failing to act when he learned his labor force might
be composed of people not authorized to work in this country.
DeCoster pleaded guilty Aug. 8 in Sioux City. He also agreed to pay a
$1.25 million civil forfeiture and $875,000 in restitution to the
federal Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
It's the largest immigration penalty ever paid in Iowa.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Judith Whetstine urged the judge to consider
DeCoster's cooperation at sentencing. He could be sent to federal
prison for six months on each count.
"Defendant, as primary decision maker in his various business
interests, agreed to a separate pretrial diversion agreement to ensure
execution of the compliance program," Whetstine said.
The compliance program will be five years - longer than normal, she
said. Immigration agents will be allowed to enter egg production
facilities without a search warrant and without notice.
Whetstine said it could be a model for other agribusinesses.
Plenty of skeptics remain.
Asked if DeCoster had changed his ways, Hancock County resident Gloria
Goll replied, "Well, it's news to me."
Goll lives on a farm near Klemme that is in the shadows of a DeCoster
confinement building. She's party to a nuisance lawsuit against the
operation.
Even if run correctly, Goll said, large-scale confinements reduce the
quality of life for those living nearby. The confinements smell,
attract flies and produce large amounts of manure that residents worry
will seep into drinking water.
"I just think there's a better way to raise animals than in a
confinement," she said.
Karen Wolf is an attorney who successfully sued DeCoster in Maine for
alleged racial discrimination in housing and working conditions. The
class-action lawsuit was brought on behalf of the Mexican government
and about 1,000 Mexican laborers - who were awarded $3.2 million in a
settlement.
Wolf said DeCoster's Maine operation appeared to be improving.
"I also think, though, that he's had a long history of violations and a
long history of not treating workers properly," Wolf said. "It's going
to take a long time of watching and of the Mexican government going
into the farm for inspections to make sure his commitment is going to
be long-term.
"I just don't think we have enough time behind us to know the answer
exactly."
DeCoster has rarely spoken to the media. He declined to comment for
this article through one of his attorneys, F. Montgomery Brown of Des
Moines, who said DeCoster would wait until after sentencing if he
comments publicly.
Despite his well-publicized troubles, DeCoster remains mostly a mystery
in Clarion.
He moved here in the early 1990s from Maine, where he built a
multimillion-dollar poultry empire started with 125 chickens given to
him as a teen by his father.
Today he's one of the nation's largest egg producers and also a player
in Iowa's pork industry, with confinement operations concentrated in
Wright and surrounding counties. He employs about 350 people in Wright
County and has developed a reputation as a tough, old-school
businessman.
But DeCoster is seen only sporadically in Clarion, eating at the Pizza
Ranch or driving to his office.
In a deposition filed in Wright County District Court, an attorney
tried to establish DeCoster's exact address.
Attorney: "Is it rural route or another identification for your
location, residence please?"
DeCoster: "Southern, southern Clarion."
Attorney: "You have no - what's your mailing address for your home?"
DeCoster: "I don't know."
Attorney: "You have no idea?"
DeCoster: "Nope."
According to records, DeCoster and his wife, Pat, do have a home in the
southern part of town, a simple one-story house with neatly kept flower
beds. His company's office is a small, unmarked brick building
southeast of town.
There is evidence he's become a more visible part of the community.
This weekend, DeCoster Farms will host its second community breakfast.
Residents are fed eggs and sausage and offered tours of the operations.
In recent years, DeCoster also has donated money or supplies for
building projects at the hospital, the school and the city's new
skateboard park.
Beth Severson said DeCoster pledged $30,000 and provided concrete for a
playground at Clarion-Goldfield schools, a fund-raising project she
helped organize. "He is really trying to help out in the community,"
Severson said.
But with his track record, remaking his image could be difficult.
The state declared DeCoster a habitual violator of environmental rules
in 2000 for repeated manure discharges, mostly at his farms in Wright
County. It was one of a long list of transgressions over the past
decade - hiring undocumented workers, subjecting workers to unsafe
conditions, causing environmental damage - that have cost DeCoster at
least $9 million in fines and penalties.
One of his attorneys, William Smith of Des Moines, said his client had
made a significant effort to improve.
"He could be a saint tomorrow, and he wouldn't get any credit for it,"
Smith said.
Smith said that the rape allegations brought by the Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission were a watershed moment for DeCoster, who has
been described as a devout Baptist. "He was personally offended by the
accusations," Smith said.
Wolf, the attorney from Maine, is unsure of the motivation.
"Do I think that he's had a major philosophical catharsis?" Wolf asked.
"Probably not. But I think he's a pretty savvy businessperson. I think
that's what is most important to him."
The judge in the immigration case delayed sentencing so he could review
DeCoster's cooperation with authorities. A business associate of
DeCoster's who pleaded to similar charges was sentenced to four months
in prison.
DeCoster's sentencing is now scheduled for Feb. 13.
------------------------
Recent notoriety
Here's a timeline of Jack DeCoster's recent troubles:
AUGUST 2003: A.J. "Jack" DeCoster pleads guilty in U.S. District Court
to charges he aided and abetted in the practice of hiring workers he
knew were not authorized to work in the United States. He also agreed
to pay $2,125,000 in civil penalties. U.S. District Court Judge Mark
Bennett ordered DeCoster released pending sentencing. The maximum
sentence would be six months in jail with no parole, a fine of $3,000
per employee in the country illegally, and a year of probation.
SEPTEMBER 2002: DeCoster Farms reaches a settlement with the U.S. Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission over charges Hispanic women working
at egg production plants in Wright County were raped, sexually harassed
and threatened. DeCoster admitted no wrongdoing, but did agree to a
$1.53 million settlement.
SEPTEMBER 2002: During the Republican gubernatorial primary, one of
Doug Gross" opponents, state Rep. Steve Sukup, tried to link Gross to
DeCoster. The controversy was fanned by the minutes of a 1990 Hardin
County Board of Supervisors meeting that identified Gross as DeCoster's
legal representative.
JUNE 2002: DeCoster Egg Farms reached a $3.2 million settlement with
the Mexican government and migrant workers who sued the operation
alleging racial discrimination in housing and working conditions.
APRIL 2001: DeCoster, a repeat violator of Iowa's environmental laws,
can finance, but not build, hog confinement operations for his son, the
Supreme Court rules. The ruling stems from a lawsuit filed by the Iowa
attorney general to block DeCoster from financing and building hog
confinement operations run by Midwest Pork, a company owned by his son
and daughter-in-law.
JUNE 2000: DeCoster agrees to pay $150,000 in fines to settle two
environmental violations, the largest ever levied against a livestock
producer in Iowa. Because of the violations, DeCoster is classified as
Iowa's first habitual violator of environmental laws, a status that can
bring high fines and loss of construction permits through October 2004.
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