By Paul A. Long
Post staff reporter

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Using two temporary labor companies they operated, three people provided thousands of illegal immigrant workers for an air freight service in Wilmington, a federal grand jury in Cincinnati has charged.

The three were arraigned Tuesday in U.S. District Court after the unsealing of a 40-count indictment charging them with money laundering as well as harboring and aiding illegal immigrant workers.

The indictment names Maximino Garcia of San Antonio, Texas; his sister, Dominga McCarroll, of Bean Station, Tenn.; and Gina Luciano of Morristown, Tenn. It names the two companies, Garcia Labor Company Inc., of Morristown, and Garcia Labor Company of Ohio Inc., of Wilmington.

Maximino Garcia owned the two companies. His sister is a former vice president, and Luciano is the director of human relations for the Ohio firm.

Each faces 20 years in prison if convicted.

The three pleaded not guilty, and Magistrate Judge Timothy S. Hogan released all three on their own recognizance.

Their attorney declined comment.

The indictment charges that the companies signed an agreement with ABX Air Inc., which runs a cargo shipping operation in Wilmington. The agreement said the companies would provide ABX with workers for a specific hourly rate.

The federal government said virtually every worker was an illegal immigrant, mostly from Mexico. Some 90 percent of them had phony resident alien and Social Security cards, it says.

The situation came to light first in May 2003, when the Social Security Administration notified ABX that the employees' Social Security numbers were either invalid or did not match the names of the workers.

Eighteen months later, the Transportation Security Administration conducted a routine compliance inspection and found the same thing, leading to the firing of virtually every temporary worker, according to statement jointly release by U.S. Attorney Gregory G. Lockhart and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

ICE then launched an investigation, leading to the indictments.

"Companies that utilize cheap, illegal alien labor as a business model should be on notice," Julie Meyers, the assistant secretary for Immigration and Customs enforcement, said in a statement,

"ICE is dramatically enhancing its enforcement efforts against employees that knowingly employ illegal aliens.

"Criminal indictments like the one unsealed (Tuesday) are the future of worksite enforcement."

Neither ABX Air nor any of its employees was named in the indictment, although several employees previously have been charged and sentenced, said Fred Alverson, spokesman for the U.S Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio.

Nor is any massive roundup of the illegal workers planned, he said.

Some of them already have been or are in the process of being deported, he said. Others can no longer be found.

But the emphasis is on the employers, not the employees, he said.

"The objective was not to go after any individual worker, but the workplace and the companies that are exploiting that workforce," he said.