EVANSVILLE — Indiana’s attorney general is appealing a Vanderburgh County judge’s ruling against his bid to press Berry Global Group and the Haitian Center of Evansville on migrant-related human labor trafficking.
As part of the ongoing appeal, Attorney General Todd Rokita’s office last week filed transcripts of past hearings in the case with the Indiana Court of Appeals. That step likely will be followed by briefs from all sides in the conflict and then appellate court hearings.
Rokita had sought to compel Berry Global, now known as Amcor, and the Haitian Center to comply with civil investigative demands that they produce documents, electronically stored information, explanations and details about their activity relative to migrants. Berry Global and the Haitian Center in turn had mounted furious opposition, prompting Rokita to complain during an appearance in Evansville that they should be helping him instead.
In October, Vanderburgh County Superior Court Judge Robert J. Pigman ruled against the AG.
Pigman denied Rokita’s petition seeking an order enforcing civil investigative demands for information that his office had sent to Berry Global and the Haitian Center. Stating that he was making his ruling by a “narrow” margin, Pigman wrote that the CIDs “do not meet the statutory standard of reasonable cause and relevancy.”
Pigman found there simply was not enough solid information to suggest Berry Global and the Haitian Center have information relevant to an investigation into labor trafficking.
What are the issues?
The case began, for all intents and purposes, days before the 2024 election when Rokita, a former Republican member of Congress, told Fox News Digital that illegal immigration has “created serious sex and labor trafficking risks in all communities.”
Rokita sent civil investigative demands to several nonprofits, local government agencies and companies around Indiana, charged with statements his aides insisted were not accusations. Berry Global and the Haitian Center were among them.
Rokita’s office argued that migrants searching for employment are uniquely vulnerable to exploitation by labor traffickers or other criminal elements who would coerce them into forced labor arrangements. They face barriers to socialization and language, housing and transportation challenges.
Rokita told the Courier & Press in July that it’s reasonable to think Berry Global and the Haitian Center might have information that could help the AG’s Office identify and root out risks of labor trafficking and also identify migrants who are at risk of being exploited.
But Berry Global and the Haitian Center argued the attorney general’s CIDs were unnecessarily burdensome and unsupported by any demonstrated reasonable cause or specificity about improper conduct.
Their lawyers repeatedly demanded to know what reasonable cause the AG’s office had to believe that Berry Global and the Haitian Center know something about human labor trafficking and the places where it happens.
The AG’s CIDs did seek a mass of information.
Interrogatories demanded, among other things, that Berry Global identify and describe which procedures or processes it uses to verify the work eligibility of individuals it recruits or hires, including whether it uses the Department of Homeland Security’s online E-Verify system or participates in Immigration and Customs Enforcement Mutual Agreement between Government and Employers program.
Rokita’s office also demanded Berry Global name the legal status of each migrant it employed in Indiana in the past three years, “including their specific status, such as Temporary Protected Status or nonimmigrant status which allowed each Migrant to obtain work authorization, and whether any Migrant was Unlawfully Present or lacked work authorization.”
The AG demanded of the Haitian Center, among other things, that it “identify and describe any and all instances of which Haitian Center is aware in the past three years of a Migrant who is Unlawfully Present being recruited by, paired with, or placed with, an Employer.”
The case has been action-packed
Last week’s filing of transcripts was just the latest development in a case that has taken numerous twists and turns, including early court rounds that went in Rokita’s favor, an unsealed docket, consolidation of the separate cases involving Berry Global and the Haitian Center into one — and the involvement at different stages of five of Vanderburgh County’s seven Superior Court judges.
One of the judges, Les Shively, recused himself when he realized that criticism he leveled at Rokita publicly months earlier as co-host of WNIN PBS’s “Shively & Shoulders” public affairs show might be a problem. The AG’s Office then publicly disagreed with Shively over his remarks on the TV show.
The case finally settled with Pigman in August.
This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: AG appealing loss in Berry Global, Haitian Center of Evansville case
Reporting by Thomas B. Langhorne, Evansville Courier & Press / Evansville Courier & Press
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