Lexington County farm allegedly employed hundreds of illegal immigrant workers

Federal officials are scrutinizing a large Lexington County family farm that allegedly employed hundreds of illegal Mexican immigrant workers.

The investigation began in 2013, but no formal charges have been brought against the farm owners, who were identified as Rawls Produce by a federal judge during a court proceeding this week against two go-betweens accused of hiring the illegal workers for the farm. Specifically, lawyers said later, the company is W.P. Rawl of Pelion.

“We can neither confirm nor deny the existence or non-existence of an investigation,” U.S. Attorney Bill Nettles said Thursday.

Rawl officials did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.

Columbia lawyers Debbie Barbier and Greg Harris, whom other lawyers identified as representing Rawl in this matter, said Thursday they could not confirm or deny they were representing Rawl.

Rawl, founded in 1925, is a major state producer of vegetables, including greens, corn, onions and squash, and owns property around Lexington County. Today, its owners include nine Rawl family members and it has several hundred employees, according to its website. Its motto is “Our business is growing.”

The existence of the allegations of widespread illegal immigrants in Rawl jobs was revealed earlier this week during an unpublicized hearing before U.S. Judge Joe Anderson at the federal courthouse in Columbia.

At the hearing, two Lexington County residents, Lazaro Mejia, 61, and his daughter, Sary Mejia, 35, were sentenced to probation on the misdemeanor charge of being part of a conspiracy to employ illegal Mexican workers at the Rawl operation.

Ordinarily, the U.S. Attorney’s office issues press releases about sentencings. In this case, however, prosecutors made no public statements.

At the hearing, which a reporter attended, officials and plea agreements revealed that federal authorities have agreed to go easy on the Mejias and not seek prison sentences, since they tipped off law enforcement to the existence of the large numbers of illegal farm workers.

Until the Mejias disclosed the existence of the Lexington County illegal farm workers, law enforcement was ignorant of the operation, the Mejias’ lawyers told Judge Anderson.

“She (Sary Mejia) painted a picture of what was going on at the farm that the government did not know about,” her lawyer, Justin Kata, told Anderson.

“The Mejias were small cogs,” Lazaro Mejia’s lawyer, Jack Duncan, told the judge. The Mejias estimate that “90 percent of Rawl’s 300 employees were undocumented,” Duncan told the judge.

People guilty of helping employ illegal immigrants can be fined up to $3,000 per illegal worker. Since lawyers estimated that the Rawl farm employed several hundred illegal workers, the Mejias could have been fined many hundreds of thousands of dollars. But the prosecutors recommended no fine, and the judge agreed.

Courtroom statements by Duncan, Kata and Anderson depicted this scenario:

▪ For years in Lexington County, Sary Mejia’s brother – whose name was not mentioned in court – was a kind of paymaster for the Rawls operation, serving as a go-between who received a lump sum check, usually weekly, for about $20,000 to pay illegal immigrant workers. Lazaro Mejia helped Mexicans who were in the country illegally get work on the Rawl farm.

▪ Several years ago, the brother died and Sary Mejia took over the paymaster part of the operation.

▪ As paymaster, Sary Mejia received a lump sum weekly in a check from the Rawl company, cashed it at a Lexington area bank and distributed the proceeds to the workers.

▪ A bank employee, alarmed at the large checks, contacted federal law enforcement officials, who interviewed Sary Mejia. From the start, Mejia told law officers exactly what she was doing. Federal officials confiscated $40,965 in cash she got after cashing a Rawl check.

The Mejias’ lawyers told the judge that federal prosecutors had agreed to seek only probation because their clients had cooperated from the beginning and not tried to hide anything. Both are U.S. citizens with clean records. Lazaro Mejia has severe health problems, Duncan said. Sary Mejia has a small child and has worked a steady supervisory job at the same retail store since 1998, Kata said.

Anderson appeared conflicted about the case but said he would accept the government’s recommendation for a probationary sentence because of the Mejias’ cooperation with authorities and their personal circumstances.

“Illegal immigration is a major problem in this country,” Anderson told the Mejias. “People like you form the magnet for those people to be here. ... Mr. Mejia brought large numbers of illegal immigrants to work at Rawls Produce.”

Anderson also wondered aloud what was going to happen to Rawl.

Describing the Mejias as “little fish,” Anderson asked prosecutor J.D. Rowell, “I guess it’s none of my business, but what about Rawl?

Rowell, who was substituting for Jim May, the assistant U.S. attorney with first-hand knowledge of the case, told Anderson, “Your honor, I’m not qualified to answer that.”

Illegal workers have been an enforcement issue in Lexington County in recent years.

Last December, former Lexington County sheriff James Metts pleaded guilty to helping get illegal Mexican workers released from the county jail he managed. A local restauranteur, Greg Leon, admitted to funneling money to Metts to persuade him to release the workers. Metts was sentenced to 10 months in prison.

Leon’s evidence in the case helped prompt Metts to plead guilty. Like the Mejias, Leon was rewarded by state and federal prosecutors for his cooperation and was able to avoid prison. Leon got a combination of fines and community services.

This story was originally published November 19, 2015 at 7:55 PM with the headline "Lexington County farm allegedly employed hundreds of illegal immigrant workers."