Undocumented aliens detained in Rutland

July 13, 2006

By Alan J. Keays Herald Staff

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An undocumented worker is led out of the Rutland City Police station late Tuesday night.
Photo: CASSANDRA HOTALING / RUTLAND HERALD

The arrest of a man for stealing beer from a city supermarket helped lead police to round up 10 undocumented Mexican construction workers on Tuesday.

According to records filed Wednesday in Rutland District Court, city police had been called Tuesday afternoon for a reported retail theft at Price Chopper.

According to court records, the suspect, Antonio Garcia, 43, left the store without paying for an 18-pack of Budweiser before a store employee began to question him.

After talking to the suspect, police said they determined that Garcia was an "undocumented alien."

"When they started looking into his background, they found that he was undocumented and Border Patrol wanted him detained," said City Police Sgt. John Sly on Wednesday.

City police officers working the night shift Tuesday, including David Schauwecker, Joseph Bartlett and Charles Hall, rounded up the other nine undocumented Mexican aliens from several locations in the city.

Another five are believed to have left the state, and authorities were continuing to look for the other two. "It is my understanding they are construction workers done at the Green Mountain Shopping plaza," Sly said.

Sly said he believed the aliens were working for a subcontractor out of Virginia who provided laborers to the renovations at the shopping plaza on Route 7 in Rutland Town.

Nine of those rounded up Tuesday were taken into custody by federal agents. They were later released after getting notices for deportation hearings, police said.

Garcia, who pleaded no contest Wednesday in Rutland District Court to the misdemeanor retail theft charge, was given credit for time served since his arrest and was then taken into custody by federal agents.

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