Immigration agents converge on Glenn Valley Foods June 10 for an immigration raid. (Courtesy of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement)
OMAHA — The Honduran janitor who waved a box cutter tool at federal agents during a high-profile immigration raid last year was sentenced Friday to 14 months in prison.
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Marvin Aleman Zepeda, 37, is to be deported to Honduras after he completes his sentence.
The sentence by Chief U.S. District Court Judge Robert Rossiter Jr. follows Aleman Zepeda’s jury trial conviction last December for resisting, impeding, interfering with or assaulting a federal officer.
Aleman Zepeda had been employed at Omaha’s Glenn Valley Foods since January 2024, according to court records, which said he had no criminal record prior to the conviction related to actions during the June 10 raid, which was the largest immigration enforcement action in Nebraska since President Donald Trump took office a second time.
Nearly 80 workers were detained. Soon after the raid, federal officials announced criminal charges against five people — four of them were protesters, the fifth was Aleman Zepeda — for encounters with immigration officers during the raid.
The operation was described as a crackdown on fraud and the use of stolen U.S. identities to work illegally. To date, available federal court records show only one employee, Guadalupe Cabrera Mejia, sentenced criminally for false representation of a Social Security number. Cabrera Mejia was sentenced earlier this year to one year in prison.
Most detained Glenn Valley workers faced civil violations rather than criminal, which put them into deportation proceedings. Several agreed to voluntarily deport themselves, and others have been released on bond while legal teams battle deportation.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have said that an administrative civil charge is often a more expedient option, a faster path to deportation. The Omaha raid came as federal agencies were under increased pressure from the Trump administration’s mass deportation goals.
In Aleman Zepeda’s case, evidence established that agents were executing a civil search warrant at Glenn Valley when they found Aleman Zepeda hiding in a crawl space. He refused repeated commands to come out. Agents struck him with tasers in the leg multiple times. They commanded him to show his hands.
Instead, a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Nebraska said, he “armed himself with a box cutter, or utility knife, with an open blade.”
The Douglas County Sheriff’s K-9 dog unit came to the scene, according to the original criminal complaint. The dog was barking and, according to a complaint, law enforcement agents informed Aleman Zepeda he would be bitten if the K-9 had to be used. He then surrendered.
The Nebraska U.S. Attorney’s Office said the Aleman Zepeda case was investigated by the Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Marshals Service and ICE. It said the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office assisted in securing him.
This story is provided by States Newsroom, a nonprofit state news network and Blox Digital content partner.
