Local business owner will do federal time for hiring illegal workers (Inland Valley Daily Bulletin)

Local business owner will do federal time for hiring illegal workers
Staff and Wire Reports
Created: 03/12/2011 07:06:18 AM PST

RANCHO CUCAMONGA - The owner of a furniture manufacturing company in this city has been sentenced to 10 months in federal prison for hiring illegal immigrants.

Brownwood Furniture owner Rick Vartanian had been warned earlier that 61 of his 73 workers at the Rancho Cucamonga company were illegal immigrants, prosecutors said.

In November 2009, Vartanian told U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents that the illegal immigrants no longer worked for Brownwood Furniture, but investigators discovered 18 illegal immigrants were still working for him.

Vartanian, 57, who was convicted of obstruction of justice and employing illegal immigrants, was sentenced last week by a Los Angeles federal judge, according to a news release from the Department of Homeland Security.

Brownwood Furniture vice president Michael Patrick Eberly, 48, of Alta Loma, pleaded guilty to employing illegal immigrants and he was placed on a years' probation and fined $10,000.

Claude Arnold, special agent in charge of Homeland Security, said certain types of industries are more prone to hiring illegal immigrants than others. Businesses such as furniture manufacturing, janitorial and food services can be particularly problematic.

Foreign nationals can work in the country under certain circumstances, he said. Just like a U.S. citizen, they must provide documentation that proves they are authorized to work in this country.

In addition, employers are required by federal law to verify that all employees, foreign or domestic, can work in the U.S. using the I-9 form, Arnold said.

The Brownwood Furniture owner had been warned, but chose to continue employing illegal immigrants, he said.

"If you're breaking the law and knowingly employing an unauthorized work force, you run the risk of being locked up," Arnold said.