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SPRINGFIELD, Illinois, Oct 27 – The Albanian owner of a Macoupin County restaurant who pleaded guilty to federal charges that he employed illegal immigrants is to be imprisoned.
A federal judge in Springfield sentenced 34-year-old Besim Tabaku to a five-month sentence and $27,000 in fines.
Tabaku pleaded guilty in August to unlawfully employing undocumented workers found at his Toni’s Family Restaurant in Mount Clare in May. The workers were paid in cash and lived at a home Tabaku owned.
All of the workers were later deported to Mexico.
Tabaku told the judge he had come to the U.S. in 1999 as a political asylum seeker from Albania.
