Posted at: 11/02/2009 3:24 PM

Print Story  Email to a Friend

Slaughterhouse Worker: Rubashkin in Over His Head

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) - An employee of an Iowa kosher meatpacking plant says that Sholom Rubashkin was incompetent and in over his head.

Chaim Abrahams testified for the defense during Rubashkin's federal fraud trial in U.S. District Court in Sioux Falls, S.D. on Monday.

Abrahams, who still works at the former Agriprocessors Inc. plant in Postville, also testified that understaffing led to sloppiness in the plant's operation.

Attorneys for Rubashkin argue that alleged fraud at the plant was the result of incompetence and not corruption.

Rubashkin is charged with 91 counts of financial fraud.

Prosecutors rested their case Monday before the defense started calling witnesses.

The plant was the site of an immigration raid in May 2008.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press.  All Rights Reserved.)