ROCKFORD – A federal judge sentenced the owner of Cortland-based Alfredo’s Iron Works to three years in prison this week after he admitted to smuggling at least two workers across the southern border with Mexico, and then deducting their paychecks to repay a smuggling fee.

U.S. District Judge Philip G. Reinhard in Rockford on Wednesday sentenced Luis Alfredo De La Cruz, 53, of DeKalb, to serve three years in federal prison during a hearing this week, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Northern District of Illinois Office.

De La Cruz did not immediately respond to a message left on his cell phone seeking comment.

He was indicted in April 2019 on federal charges related to smuggling, transporting and harboring immigrants living in the country without legal permission at his business, Alfredo’s Iron Works, 280 W. Lincoln Highway in Cortland.

The charges alleged De La Cruz did so for commercial advantage and his own financial gain.

U.S. immigration authorities conducted an operation at Alfredo’s Iron Works on June 1, 2018, during which they removed eight employees from the plant. Though he pleaded not guilty in April 2019, De La Cruz admitted in a plea agreement earlier this year that on Nov. 1, 2015, he knowingly brought an immigrant without legal permission to the U.S. to work for his business, according to prosecutors.

De La Cruz also admitted that he paid a smuggling fee to another individual to bring the worker into the country, the release states. Once the person started working for De La Cruz’s business, De La Cruz deducted a smuggling fee from the worker’s paychecks, referring to it as an “employee loan repayment,” according to the release.

Investigators searched De La Cruz’s business and found in a desk drawer fraudulent identification documents for an additional 10 workers living in the country without legal permission, the release states.

Federal prosecutors said De La Cruz admitted he smuggled at least two people into the U.S. on at least four separate occasions.

Current DeKalb County Judge Joseph Pedersen worked as a federal prosecutor on the case before he took the bench for the 23rd Judicial Circuit Court in DeKalb County. During an April 2019 hearing, Pedersen (acting in his capacity as federal prosecutor) had asked the judge for time to review what Pedersen said was 3,300 pages of documents and digital correspondence, seized during a search of Alfredo’s Iron Works, that purport to show De La Cruz knowingly smuggled individuals across the U.S.-Mexico border.

DeKalb Police Department assisted with the federal investigation, which also included the Chicago Office of Homeland Security Investigations.