ICE is targeting a California furniture manufacturer based on the company's ignoring a prior finding that its workers were not authorized:

The president of a Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., furniture manufacturing business was charged Monday with criminal violations stemming from a probe by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Office of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) into allegations the company hired unauthorized alien workers.

Rick M. Vartanian, 57, of Ladera Ranch, Calif., the president and primary shareholder of Brownwood Furniture, is charged in a criminal information with one count of obstruction of justice and one misdemeanor count of continuing to employ unauthorized workers. According to the court documents, in November 2009, Vartanian told ICE that unauthorized workers identified during an earlier HSI audit were no longer employed by the company, when, in

fact, the company continued to employ 18 of those workers and had taken steps to shield them from detection by HSI. HSI agents executed a search warrant at the company in December 2009 and discovered the 18 unauthorized employees still working there. Vartanian, who has already agreed to pay a $10,000 fine, faces a statutory maximum sentence of 66 months in prison.

The enforcement action against Vartanian comes less than three weeks after the filing of charges against Brownwood Furniture's vice president, Michael Patrick Eberly. Eberly, 48, of Alta Loma, Calif., is charged in a criminal information filed Oct. 12 with one count of continuing employment of unauthorized workers, a misdemeanor. Eberly is scheduled to make his initial court appearance Nov. 19. According to the charging document, Eberly knew that many of

the furniture company's workers were unauthorized and continued to employ them. Eberly, who has agreed to pay a $5,000 fine, also faces a maximum sentence up to six months in prison.

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