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CHICAGO – The president and office manager of two Bensenville, Ill., staffing companies that supplied temporary workers to suburban warehouses were charged Monday with unlawfully hiring dozens of illegal aliens to form their labor pool. The charges resulted from a worksite enforcement investigation conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Clinton Roy Perkins, and his son-in-law, Christopher J. Reindl, are president and office manager, respectively, of Anna II Inc., and Can Do It Inc. Both are staffing companies located at 801 Golf Lane in Bensenville that provide workers to warehouses throughout the Chicagoland area. Perkins, 65, of Wayne, Ill., and Reindl, 40, of St. Charles, Ill., were each charged April 26 with one count of unlawfully hiring illegal aliens between October 2006 and October 2007. The charges also seek forfeiture from Perkins of $488,095, which was seized from various bank accounts as well as the Bensenville office.
In addition to hiring illegal workers, the defendants allegedly paid their workers’ wages in cash and failed to deduct payroll taxes or other withholdings, according to a single-count criminal information filed in the Northern District of Illinois. “Employers in all industries and locations must comply with the nation’s immigration laws if we are tohave an effective immigration enforcement strategy in this country,” said Gary Hartwig, special agent in charge of the ICE Office of Investigation in Chicago. “ICE is committed to ensuring that employers are held accountable for maintaining a legal workforce. The goal of our enforcement effort is two-fold – reduce the demand for illegal employment, and protect job opportunities for the nation’s lawful workforce.”
Anna II/Can Do It provided both skilled and unskilled labor to clients operating warehouses in various suburbs. The workers performed janitorial services, loaded and unloaded freight packages and merchandise, and installed and removed structures inside warehouses. Both defendants allegedly failed to require the aliens that Perkins hired to provide documents establishing their immigration status or lawful right to work in the United States.
Perkins and Reindl directed low-level supervisory employees to transport illegal workers back and forth between locations near the aliens’ residences in Chicago and work sites in the suburbs, the charges allege. Both also allegedly provided bogus six-digit numbers – purporting to be the last six digits of the aliens’ Social Security numbers – to a company, knowing that their workers were in the country illegally and did not possess valid Social Security numbers. The charges also allege that Perkins and Reindl repeatedly withdrew funds in the amount of $9,800 from bank accounts to pay their employees’ wages in cash, believing that withdrawing amounts less than $10,000 would avoid triggering the banks’ currency transaction reporting requirements.
ICE was assisted in the investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Inspector General in Chicago. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Christopher R. McFadden and Daniel May, Northern District of Illinois, are prosecuting the case. If convicted, unlawfully hiring illegal aliens carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
ICE press release