The owner of a roofing company in Iowa City, Iowa, pled guilty Monday, August 29, 2011, to alien harboring charges. The guilty pleas were entered in federal court in Cedar Rapids.

Samira Zuniga, 33, from Iowa City, Iowa, a United States citizen, was convicted of one count of harboring and transporting an alien, and one count of conspiring with others to harbor, transport, and encourage aliens to reside in the United States in violation of law.

Zuniga’s company, Xtreme Construction, performed residential roofing work for another construction company in eastern Iowa. On April 26, 2011, nine illegal immigrant workers were arrested by Homeland Security Investigations in Hiawatha, Iowa, while working on a residential roofing job. Evidence presented at an earlier bond hearing showed Zuniga withdrew several thousand dollars in cash from personal and business accounts and fled to Mexico with her husband, a Mexican citizen, and their two children within a few days of the Hiawatha arrests. Zuniga was arrested on June 20, 2011, shortly after she returned to the United States from Mexico. Zuniga was arrested while she and others were in the process of loading items into a cargo trailer to be taken back to Mexico. Zuniga’s husband and children remained in Mexico.

Sentencing before United States District Court Chief Judge Linda R. Reade will be set after a presentence report is prepared. Zuniga remains in custody of the United States Marshal pending sentencing in light of the court’s earlier finding that she poses a risk of flight.

Zuniga faces a possible maximum sentence of 15 years’ imprisonment, a $500,000 fine, $200 in special assessments, and 6 years of supervised release following any imprisonment.

The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Richard L. Murphy and was investigated by Homeland Security Investigations.

Court file information is available at https://ecf.iand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl. The case file number is 11-00113 LRR.

 

 

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