CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) — Lawyers for a former Kosher slaughterhouse executive are asking a judge to bar from testifying former plant workers who may have lied to get work in the United States.
About 32 former workers at Agriprocessors Inc. are listed as government witnesses in the prosecution of Sholom Rubashkin, a former manager of the Postville slaughterhouse.
Rubashkin is accused of immigrant harboring, bank fraud, mail fraud and wire fraud. Rubashkin's arrest followed a May 2008 immigration raid at the Agriprocessors plant.
In a motion filed Monday, attorneys for Rubashkin say some government witnesses were "incompetent to testify as a matter of law" because of their desires to return home. Prosecutors kept many of the witnesses in the country despite their wishes to return to Guatemala, Mexico and other homelands.
Prosecutors have 10 days to respond to the motion.
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