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• Attorneys for the four did not immediately return telephone messages left by The Associated Press on Thursday.
• Two other men were each fined $2,500 and ordered to forfeit money and equipment for violating employment laws.
• Prosecutors said 31-year-old Miguel Soto, who is not related to the family, was fined for knowingly employing workers living in the country illegally while running his own logging crew for Black Hills Thinning Company. Pascual Munoz, 55, owner and operator of Pine Forest Logging and Thinning, was fined for hiring workers living in the country illegally, not paying insurance or overtime and not providing safety equipment, all in violation of his U.S. Forest Service contracts.
• Attorneys for Soto and Munoz said Thursday they did not wish to comment on the sentences.
• Johnson said the convictions are a result of a criminal investigative operation conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations. The crimes occurred between January 2008 and May 2013, and the sentences were handed down last week.
• The agency was assisted by the U.S. Forest Service, the Rapid City Police Department, the Pennington County Sheriff's Office, the South Dakota Division of Criminal Investigation, the Custer County's Sheriff's Office and the U.S. Department of Labor.
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Rural leaders say planning, support key to growth
HENRY C. JACKSON, Associated Press
• WASHINGTON (AP) -- Rural communities need to sell what they are, not what they are not, to thrive economically, witnesses told a Senate panel Wednesday.
• Witnesses also told members of a subcommittee of the Senate Agriculture Committee that government support is important for the growth and long term potential of small cities and that towns and municipalities should band together to maximize their potential.
• "If the mother hen is healthy and vibrant, all the baby chicks will grow up and be good as well," said Gary Person, city manager of Sidney, Nebraska, the home of Cabela's, a hunting and outdoor supply company.
• Person spoke on a panel that also included business and community leaders from North Dakota and South Dakota. The hearing was focused on how to boost rural economies and included discussion both of rural success stories, such as Cabela's and Native American Natural Foods, based in Kyle, South Dakota, and ways (Continued on page 36)
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