The owner of a firm that provided temporary foreign workers pleaded guilty last week to conspiracy to commit visa fraud, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Mississippi. The owner, Michael Lombardi, 41, of Royal Palm Beach, Fla., faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine when he is sentenced on Aug. 6, according to the office.

Lombardi placed foreign workers from the Philippines under the H-2B visa program at U.S. firms that were not authorized to employ them, according to the office. The incidents happened between January 2009 and April 2010.

Some of the workers were employed by companies in Mississippi.