Why We’re Here
This project was sparked by government abuse.
In May 2006, police helicopters swooped down from the early morning sky, buzzing construction sites in Northern Kentucky overseen by Fischer Homes. Swat teams arrested Hispanic-looking workers. Armed agents targeted Fischer superintendents, accused of harboring illegal aliens, handcuffing them at dawn in front of friends and family and dragging them off to jail. Each faced as much as a $250,000 fine and 10 years in jail. The company was threatened with a felony indictment and charges under RICO, the racketeering laws designed to go after organized criminals, that would have ruined it and cost the jobs of 500 associates and thousands more subcontracted workers. Thus began a three-year nightmare for Mr. Fischer and hundreds of workers, friends, and business associates of Fischer Homes.
The incident came as a shock to those who knew Henry and Elaine Fischer and the company that they had built. Founded in 1980, their tiny company had grown into an integrated corporation that offers everything from condominiums to large single-family homes in more than 60 communities throughout the Greater Cincinnati area and in-and-around Columbus. In 2006, before the U.S. government inserted itself so forcefully into its life, the Fischer Group had become one of the 100 largest homebuilders in the U.S. By this time, Henry had earned a reputation among peers in the industry, as well as among homebuyers and vendors, as being unpretentious and squeaky clean. His company was an unlikely target for a high-profile federal probe into American immigration policy during the height of a politicized, vitriolic national debate on the issue. But that’s what happened.
Along the way, in their zeal to land a trophy conviction, Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and federal prosecutors did their utmost to intimidate Mr. Fischer into striking a plea deal that would spare his workers a perilous court battle and his company from being further dragged through the mud. As Mr. Fischer learned, this is par for the course in many government investigations. Often, there is not even an intention by the government of going to trial. Instead, prosecutors have perfected more powerful tactics: exploiting the threat of business losses and manipulating the media to force capitulation.
From a financial point of view, it was a no-brainer; Mr. Fischer should have taken the plea deal, swallowed hard and admitted guilt, and paid one million dollars. Only pride and his commitment to his associates and the reputation they had worked so hard to build stood in the way. Mr. Fischer fought back. And against all odds he won.
Now he’s hoping that his frightful experience, and the documented excesses of the government prosecutors, in this case will become a textbook example of how not to handle a federal investigation. As Michael Crites, the former US Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, said at a conference on unwarranted prosecution, spurred by the Fischer Homes fiasco: “Make this book part of the reading list for all law students; make sure this story gets in the public domain.”
At what point does the potential public benefits of vigorous prosecution outweigh the actual harm when fundamental legal protections are compromised? Most people find it difficult to hold much sympathy for corporations, often forgetting that we depend on a dynamic, competitive economy for its welfare. The victims of over zealous prosecutors and ambitious government agencies are often workers and their families, including many small and medium sized business owners who have played by the rules and yet now find themselves targets.
Mr. Fischer and those sympathetic with his commitment to prosecutorial transparency and accountability are hoping to stimulate a wide-ranging debate that will lead to new checks-and-balances introduced into our judicial system. Remember: this can happen to you.
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