12/05/2006

Man pleads guilty to providing illegal alien workers to GT Resort

GRAND RAPIDS — A former Traverse City man pleaded guilty to federal charges of harboring illegal aliens and making false statements on his tax return as part of an ongoing probe into a Florida company that provided illegal alien workers to the Grand Traverse Resort & Spa.

Santiago Echaniz, 42, of Orlando, Fla., entered a guilty plea last week to a two-count indictment in U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids for his involvement in providing illegal alien workers through Rosenbaum-Cunningham International, Inc. (RCI), a Florida-based company that contracts for providing cleaning and ground-service maintenance workers to the hospitality sector throughout the country.

Federal prosecutors said Echaniz admitted in court that he was employed by RCI between 2002-06 to supervise its employees at the Grand Traverse Resort & Spa in Acme, and that the majority of the employees were illegal aliens. He also acknowledged that in November 2004, at RCI's direction and expense, he helped most of the workers obtain fraudulent immigration documents to comply with the resort's demand for proof that RCI employees were not illegal aliens.

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service raided the resort in late February and netted 20 illegal, undocumented workers. The immigration agency and Internal Revenue Service later executed search warrants in Traverse City and Florida as part of the investigation. The resort cooperated fully with the investigation and terminated its relationship with RCI.

Federal officials also said Echaniz admitted that in 2004 RCI wired $765,362 into his bank account and that he paid $659,316 to the RCI workers and kept the balance, $106,046, as his pay from RCI. He claimed on his 2004 tax return that he operated as an independent business, which prompted the false tax report charge.

Federal prosecutors in August also filed forfeiture proceedings to seize real estate and nearly $600,000 in assets from principals of RCI.

Echaniz faces up to five years in prison on the harboring illegal aliens charge and up to three years on the false tax return count. He's scheduled for sentencing on March 30 by District Judge Robert Holmes Bell, assistant U.S. Attorney Hagen Frank said.