By Gwyneth Gibby
Gazette-Times reporter | Posted: Thursday, August 23, 2007 12:00 am
Cockfighting investigation nets 7 workers suspected of immigration violations
Authorities who descended on a Benton County dairy Tuesday to arrest a man suspected of running a cockfighting operation also took six other dairy workers into custody on suspicion of immigration violations.
Seven of the 11 employees at the Van Beek Dairy near Monroe - including Martin Ramos-Reyes, 36, who on Wednesday was arraigned on two felony charges related to keeping and rearing fighting birds and methamphetamine possession - remained in the Benton County jail on Wednesday.
Ramon-Reyes was granted a court-appointed attorney and bail was set at $30,000 during his arraignment. Immigration and Customs Enforcement also placed a hold on him, meaning that if Ramon-Reyes did post bail he would immediately be taken into federal custody.
Following Tuesday's raid by the Corvallis Police Department, FBI and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the owners of the family-owned Van Beek Dairy were scrambling Wednesday to recruit help from friends, churches and Oregon State University students get their 1,200 cows milked.
Amy Van Beek, whose husband, Martin Van Beek, and brother-in-law, Fred Van Beek, are partners in the dairy, said police told the family they were also investigating Ramos-Reyes for allegedly supplying forged documents to fellow workers at the dairy. Van Beek said all of the dairy's employees had identification documents such as Social Security cards. If the documents were forged, the dairy didn't know it, she insisted.
Deputy District Attorney Karen Stanley said investigators believe Ramos-Reyes provided roosters for a cockfight held in July. On Tuesday, authorities found more than 35 birds at the dairy and seized two roosters with injuries consistent with having been involved in fighting. One of the roosters was blinded in one eye.
Van Beek said they had heard some indication several months ago that Ramos-Reyes was breeding roosters at the dairy. Her husband and brother-in-law told him he had to remove them, she said. As far as the Van Beeks knew, Ramos-Reyes had no more than six or seven roosters at the dairy, she said.
"We watched them put them in a truck and take them away," Van Beek said.
She said she does not believe cockfights were held at the dairy.
"We never saw like a ton of cars here or anything like that," she said. "If there were fights, it would have to be when we were away as a family."
The family does not condone cockfighting, Van Beek said.
"As a family, that's something that we are very much against," she said.
Police said the dairy's owners cooperated in the investigation of the suspected cockfighting.
Ramos-Reyes began working at the dairy about five years ago as the main herdsman and was doing a good job, Van Beek said. He lives at the dairy with his wife and three children.
Van Beek said she was upset by the arrests.
"The biggest thing we want to communicate to people is how absolutely horribly these Hispanic people are treated when this happens," Van Beek said.
Ramos-Reyes' children were frightened when officers entered his home with weapons drawn, she said. Six children of dairy employees who were taken into custody are now without either one or both parents.
"It was devastating to the kids," she said. "These families are hard-working, really sweet people."