President Trump commutes sentence of Sholom Rubashkin, ex-Iowa slaughterhouse executive

Luke Nozicka
The Des Moines Register

President Donald Trump on Wednesday commuted the prison sentence of former Iowa slaughterhouse executive Sholom Rubashkin, who was sentenced to 27 years for bank fraud and money laundering, the White House said. 

Sholom Rubashkin, right, heads to a court appearance in Cear Rapids on Oct. 30, 2008.

In a statement, the White House said the decision, which is not a presidential pardon, had bipartisan support from leaders across the political spectrum, such as House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-California) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah). Trump's action does not vacate Rubashkin’s conviction and leaves his term of supervised release and a restitution obligation, the White House said. 

Rubashkin, a 57-year-old father of 10 children, oversaw operations at Agriprocessors, a large kosher meatpacking plant owned by his father in the northern Iowa town of Postville. The plant was raided by agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in May 2008, leading to the arrests of nearly 400 Mexican and Guatemalan immigrants who were living and working in the country without authorization.

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The raid sparked a chain of events, including Agriprocessors declaring bankruptcy, that led investigators to suspicious invoices and other sales records that Rubashkin faked to make the company appear on better financial footing. Prosecutors accused Rubashkin of using the fake paperwork to continue borrowing on a $35 million line of credit, ultimately resulting in a $27 million loss for a St. Louis-based bank when Agriprocessors went defunct.

Rubashkin was convicted in 2009 and sentenced to 27 years in prison. He has served more than eight years of that sentence. 

One of Rubashkin's attorneys, Montgomery Brown, said Rubashkin was released Wednesday from the Federal Correctional Institution in Otisville in New York. His wife picked him up, Brown said Rubashkin's son told him. Rubashkin's family could not be reached for comment Wednesday night. 

Another one of Rubashkin's attorney, Guy Cook, praised Trump's commutation, the president's first in office. Cook said Rubashkin “finally received justice" and called the commutation tremendous news for the Rubashkin family, who live Borough Park, a neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York.

The sentence was essentially a life sentence, Cook told the Register. He called it unfair and unjust, and described it as not supported by the facts of the trial.

“President Trump has done what is right and just,” Cook said. “The unrelenting efforts on behalf of Rubashkin have finally paid off.”

A review of Rubashkin's case was supported by more than 30 members of Congress, including Rep. Steve King, R-Kiron, the White House said. He was the only Iowa representative to support a review. Five former high-ranking Department of Justice officials, including former FBI Director Louis Freeh, also supported a review of the case, the White House said. 

Robert Teig, a former assistant U.S. attorney for the northern district of Iowa who was involved in the prosecution early on, called the commutation political, describing it as the result of a campaign of false information. Rubashkin was likely the largest employer of illegal immigrants at the time in Iowa, Teig said. He asserted the commutation was "180-degrees" from a get-tough approach on illegal immigration. 

"[Rubashkin] couldn’t win legally, factually or morally, so he had to win politically," Teig, 66, of Cedar Rapids, told the Register. "It’s sad when politics interferes with the justice system."

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Rubashkin's case in 2012.

In January, Chief U.S. District Court Judge Linda Reade denied a petition from defense attorneys seeking a new sentencing hearing and other relief that could have freed Rubashkin earlier than his expected 2033 release date. Reade accused the former executive's attorneys of "embellishing" their claims to win a new hearing.

Attorneys representing Rubashkin claimed in a court petition that the bank's loss was caused by prosecutors who wrongfully meddled in the bankruptcy sale, scaring off potential buyers willing to pay more than the eventual $8.5 million sale price. The filings pointed to new evidence, including recently discovered handwritten notes, that defense lawyers claim prove prosecutors misled Reade about their interference in the sale at the time of the sentencing.

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Prosecutors denied any wrongdoing, and Reade wrote in her ruling that the sentence was based on more than just the amount Rubashkin cost the bank.

"The government did not conceal any information that materially affected the outcome of the sentencing hearing and it did not offer misleading testimony," she wrote.

"(Rubashkin) orchestrated a massive criminal scheme that impacted a very large community, that is, defrauded financial institutions for approximately 10 years, harbored an illegal workforce and laundered millions of dollars in an effort to provide kosher products across the nation," she wrote. The court recognized that "(Rubashkin) repeatedly tried to obstruct justice when his criminal scheme came to light, never acknowledged what the law requires and never wholeheartedly accepted responsibility."

The defense attorneys' claims sparked calls for former President Barack Obama to use his clemency power to free Rubashkin or shorten his sentence, most prominently in the opinion pages of the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal. But Obama left office without granting Rubashkin a pardon or commuting his sentence.

A bipartisan group of more than 100 former high-ranking Department of Justice officials have expressed concerns about the evidentiary proceedings in Rubashkin’s case and the severity of his sentence, the White House said in its statement Wednesday.  

Supporters of Rubashkin have long claimed that the 27-year sentence handed down by Reade was excessive. Rubashkin's prison sentence was nearly three years longer than the original prison sentence given to Jeffrey Skilling, the former Enron president convicted in a fraud case that cost shareholders $11 billion.

But detractors lamented that Rubashkin was never tried in federal court on a host of immigration charges, which would have given former workers an opportunity to testify about alleged abuses and exploitation at the plant. Prosecutors in the U.S. Attorneys Office dismissed those charges shortly after Rubashkin's convictions for bank fraud and money laundering.

A jury acquitted Rubashkin in state court of 67 misdemeanor child labor law violations in 2010 after his defense attorney argued the executive should not be held liable for employing teens who "tricked" the company using fake documents. But among the allegations made public in that case were claims that certain Agriprocessors supervisors harassed and had sexual intercourse with female workers in a storage room at the plant.

Rubashkin has enjoyed support from his community of Chabad-Lubavitch Jews. After the White House announced the commute, some Orthodox Jews, including outgoing New York City Council member David Greenfield, called the news a Chanukah miracle. 

"After years of getting railroaded by the legal system, Sholom Rubashkin is finally going home thanks to (President Trump)," Greenfield, a Democrat who represented the neighborhood where members of Rubashkin's family live, said in a statement on Twitter. 

Check back for updates with the Register.