NEW YORK (JTA) — Jury selection was set to begin in the trial of the former manager of an Iowa kosher slaughterhouse.
Sholom Rubashkin is facing a range of charges related to his stewardship of the Agriprocessors meatpacking plant in Postville. The plant was the target of a massive federal immigration raid in 2008.
Jury selection was to start Tuesday. Rubashkin is facing 163 charges, according to news reports, and could be sent to jail for the rest of his life. He has denied the charges.
The trial is being held in a federal courthouse in Sioux Falls, S.D., after a federal judge in Iowa accepted a defense motion arguing that potential jurors in the state were unduly influenced by media coverage of the case.
Rubashkin’s son Getzel said in an e-mail that his father had prepared “intensely, but also with the peace of mind of a man who knows he will be, G-d willing, fully exonerated."
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