Pennsylvania’s billionaire Asplundh family were dragged into a bullying scandal after their son’s new wife tried to force another woman to give up her Instagram handle and now it has emerged they were once fined $95 million for hiring undocumented workers.
According to a 2017 press release from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Asplundh Tree Experts, now reportedly worth $5 billion, pleaded guilty to employing workers it knew were using false identification papers and recieved the fine.
According to the release, upper managers “remained willfully blind while lower level managers hired and rehired employees they knew to be ineligible to work in the United States.”
The company paid $80 million in criminal forfeiture and $15 million in civil payment. The $95 million total is still the recordholder for the largest immigration judgement in history.
The family name came under the microscope again this week when Katherine Driscoll Asplundh — who married Cabot Asplundh on April 27 — allegedly tried to bully a user with the name Katherine Asplundh into signing over the rights to her Instagram handle.
According to screenshots of the conversation posted to the NYCInfluencesnark sub Reddit, the new Katherine Asplundh started off with a breezy message.
“Hi just wondering if I could purchase your username from you,” the newlywed wrote. “I just got married and this is my new name.”
The other Katherine Asplundh kindly refused.
“Hi congrats! That’s my name too,” she wrote. “I just googled and it said selling my username would get me banned from Instagram.”
From there, things deteriorated between the two Katherine Asplundhs.
“I purchased my username in the past actually that’s not true,” responded the billionaire’s wife. “Celebrities do it all the time that’s how they all have their handles as their full names. So weird, I didn’t know there was another Asplundh’s family out there [sic]. There no Katherine Asplundh in our family.”
Upon receiving no response, the billionaire’s wife pointed out that the other Katherine wasn’t very active on Instagram and should therefore change her name to accommodate her.
The other Katherine then told the billionaire’s wife that the account was a “finsta” or fake Instagram that she uses for private stories and archiving photos, and that her main account uses her maiden name.
Irritated Driscoll-Asplundh argued that the other woman’s name wasn’t really Katherine Asplundh, and that she would be reported.
“I actually don’t believe that your name is Katherine Asplundh who would make their finsta their actual name? I reported you to Instagram and they’re actually able to tell me your real name I really hope I don’t know you because that’s gonna be really embarrassing for you.”
Driscoll-Asplundh then demanded to see documentation that the other woman was not lying about her name.
After the other woman posted the screenshots, the newlywed deleted her Instagram account.
The new bride’s in-laws own the Asplundh Tree Expert Co. in Pennsylvania, which is the 109th largest private company in America with a revenue of $5.42 billion in 2023, according to Forbes.
Katherine’s new father-in-law, Matt Asplundh, has been the CEO of the family business since 2021.
It’s unclear when, or if, Driscoll-Asplundh will return to Instagram.
