Our client, a restaurant owner and longtime permanent resident in Atlanta, was facing serious federal charges in two different districts–he was charged with federal money laundering in the Southern District of Texas in Houston, and he and his wife were charged with alien smuggling and forced labor in the Northern District of Georgia in Atlanta. Our client faced a recommended sentence of 15 years under federal sentencing guidelines and a maximum of up to life in prison.
The case made local headlines when the charges were announced, and again when the charges were dismissed. Attorney Tom Church was also interviewed on Univision regarding the firm’s successful defense of the Gonzalezes.
As detailed in our firm’s blog post discussing his wife’s case, our firm conducted a vigorous investigation which exposed the Government’s witnesses as liars and uncovered evidence of misconduct by the federal Homeland Security agents that investigated the labor trafficking case in Atlanta. At the same time, we prepared a strong defense against the money laundering charges in Houston and were set to go to trial.
While we were ready to go to trial for our client in both cases, he had been denied a bond early in the case and had been sitting in jail for over a year. For that reason, he asked us to try to get a favorable plea deal that would get him out of jail and allow him to avoid deportation from the U.S., the country he had called home for over 20 years.
When we asked the Government to make a plea offer, prosecutors initially insisted on our client serving a decade in prison and accepting mandatory deportation. That changed when we disclosed all of the evidence we had obtained and showed the Government that they wouldn’t stand a chance at trial. Sure enough, the Government agreed to a sentence of “time served” for our client’s wife and to dismiss the forced labor and alien smuggling charges against her. Instead, she pleaded to alien harboring based on her hiring unlawful aliens at the restaurant.
The Government agreed to dismiss the original charges against our client as well but continued insisting that he would still have to be deported once he was released. Our client, desperate to get out of jail, initially accepted their offer and pleaded guilty to reduced alien harboring charges. He was resigned to the fact that he would be deported after serving his sentence.
Our firm never gave up fighting for him, however, and we continued investigating the case and working for a breakthrough. That breakthrough came shortly before our client’s sentencing hearing, when we obtained evidence confirming our suspicions that the main agent investigating the case had been removed from the case for misconduct.
We used this information to force the Government back to the negotiating table and offer our client a deal that would let him stay in the U.S. and avoid deportation. Eventually, we obtained a “global resolution” to both of his federal cases and reduced the charges in Texas and Georgia to minor offenses that do not require mandatory deportation. Our client agreed to plead guilty to one count of bulk cash smuggling instead of money laundering and one count of hiring more than 10 unlawful aliens in a 12-month period rather than alien harboring, alien smuggling, or forced labor—neither of the reduced offenses are an “aggravated felony,” as defined by federal immigration laws, which would require mandatory deportation.
Even then, we didn’t stop fighting. When our client came to court to withdraw his prior guilty plea and enter a new plea to the reduced charges, we were able to obtain his release on bond pending his sentencing—something that’s almost unheard of in federal cases where the defendant was previously denied bond.
We convinced the judge that the new plea agreement reflected that the Government was unable to prove any of the allegations in the indictment, which it had relied on to argue against our client’s bond. In releasing our client, the judge acknowledged that we had “forced” the Government to abandon those allegations.
Thanks to our firm’s hard work and experience defending clients charged with these kinds of offenses, our client can stay in this country with his family, where he has lived for over 20 years. His restaurant is still open, he and his wife did not have to pay any fines or restitution, and our firm has been helping them clear their names.
