Central Figure in O'Neill Immigration Raids Sentenced

Nov. 27, 2019, 5:06 p.m. ·

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Federal Building/U.S. District Courthouse in Lincoln (Photo by Fred Knapp, NET News)

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A man who supplied workers who were in the country illegally to agricultural businesses in and around O’Neill, Nebraska was sentenced Wednesday to 10 years in federal prison.


Juan Pablo Sanchez Delgado pled guilty to conspiracy to harbor illegal aliens. He ran staffing companies that supplied workers to a tomato plant, a potato plant, hog, cattle, and poultry operations. Those operations were locations targeted in immigration raids on Aug. 8, 2018 in which over 130 people were arrested.

Sanchez-Delgado's wife, Magdalena Castro-Benitez was sentenced to two and a half years in prison for what the U.S. Attorney’s office described as serving as her husband’s “money manager.”

In a recent trial of other alleged conspirators, workers testified that Sanchez Delgado didn’t pay them for all the hours they worked, withheld money for taxes he never paid to the government, and charged workers for cashing their paychecks at his grocery store. Meanwhile, he and his wife bought three houses in Las Vegas worth more than $1.5 million. The U.S. Attorney’s office says Judge John Gerrard approved a preliminary order for those houses to be forfeited, and will determine the final restitution to be paid to workers who were victimized later.

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