In the United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ No. 19-1367 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. GRAYSON ENTERPRISES, INC., Defendant-Appellant. ____________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of Illinois. No. 2:16-cr-20044-SEM-TSH-2 — Sue E. Myerscough, Judge. ____________________ ARGUED SEPTEMBER 26, 2019 — DECIDED FEBRUARY 12, 2020 ____________________ Before BAUER, MANION, and ST. EVE, Circuit Judges. ST. EVE, Circuit Judge. Grayson Enterprises, Inc., is a roof- ing company that does business under the trade name Gire Roofing. A grand jury indicted Grayson alongside its busi- ness’s namesake, Edwin Gire, on charges of visa fraud, har- boring unauthorized aliens, and employing the same aliens. On paper, though, Gire had no official relation to Grayson as a corporate entity—he was not a stockholder, officer, or 2 No. 19-1367 even an employee of the corporation. He managed the roofing (Grayson’s sole business), as he had under the Gire Roofing name for more than twenty years. The corporate papers in- stead identified Grayson’s president and sole stockholder as Kimberly Young. Young—Gire’s girlfriend—incorporated and acted as president of the “new” company Grayson, after Gire’s previous roofing company went bankrupt. Gire, his re- tained counsel, and the government all nevertheless repre- sented to the district court that Gire was Grayson’s president. The district court, thus, permitted Gire to plead guilty on his and Grayson’s behalf to three counts of employing unauthor- ized aliens and to waive his and Grayson’s rights to a jury trial on the remaining charges. Joint counsel also represented both defendants during a bench trial that resulted in their convic- tions on all charges and a finding that Grayson’s headquarters was forfeitable to the government because Gire had used the building to harbor aliens. Despite obtaining separate counsel before sentencing, nei- ther Grayson nor Young (who testified at trial) ever com- plained to the district court about Gire’s or prior counsel’s representations. Neither did Grayson object to the indictment, the plea colloquy, or the fact that the court found, without a separate hearing, that Grayson had used its headquarters to facilitate the harboring of unauthorized aliens. Nevertheless, Grayson now challenges all these matters, and more, on ap- peal. Grayson identifies some areas where this case could have gone more smoothly but no errors that warrant reversal. We therefore affirm the district court’s judgment. No. 19-1367 3 I. Background A. Factual Background Gire began his roofing business in the 1990s and has con- ducted it under multiple corporate entities, all of which have used the business name “Gire Roofing.” In 2011, this name belonged to Gire Construction, Inc., of which Gire was presi- dent and owner. On behalf of his corporation, Gire submitted a petition for temporary foreign workers under the H-2B visa program, which allows a limited number of foreign workers to enter the United States “to perform … temporary service or labor if unemployed persons capable of performing such ser- vice or labor cannot be found in this country.” 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(15)(H)(ii)(b). To ...
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