United States-Meat Boss trial must proceed.

UNITED STATES-WORLDS LARGEST KOSHER ABATTOIR.

The judge in Sholom Rubashkin’s criminal trial last week denied his claims that the federal grand jury’s decision to indict him on at least some charges are related to anti-Semitic opinions, the Des Moines Register reported.

Lawyers for Rubashkin, who is an Orthodox Jew, had asked that several charges be dismissed, including allegations that he defrauded a bank and helped undocumented immigrants obtain false identification papers in his role as an executive with Agriprocessors Inc. in Postville, Iowa. Until recently, Agriprocessors was the country’s largest kosher slaughterhouse.

Defense lawyers said that grand jury witnesses had made negative references to Rubashkin’s and other defendants’ religion, and presented an expert who said that Jewish stereotypes could have helped lead the grand jury to indict.

But Chief District Judge Linda Reade, of the Northern District Court of Iowa, rejected the claim, saying "there was no impropriety in these grand jury proceedings," and that "[d]efendants have mischaracterized and taken out of context what are in truth innocuous statements and questions," the Register reported.

Rubashkin’s lawyers were not immediately certain if their client would appeal the decision. Judge Reade did not rule on other requests by Rubashkin, including that the defendants’ cases be separated and that the trials be moved out of state because of the intense media coverage in Iowa.

Rubashkin’s criminal charges stem from an ICE raid last May on Agriprocessors’ main facility in Postville. Most of the company’s employees were arrested on charges of misappropriating identification.