The national battle over the government’s inability to stem the tide of illegal immigrants got personal Friday in a federal courtroom.
U.S. District Court Judge Kenneth Marra bristled at the suggestion that the government’s time would be better spent keeping illegal immigrants from entering the country than prosecuting a suburban West Palm Beach man for hiring them. Business people such as Mark David, Marra said, are a big part of the problem.
“One of the reason they come is because people hire them,” Marra said. “If people wouldn’t hire them they wouldn’t be coming in droves.”
And, prosecutors said, the 48-year-old owner of Sun Deck Concrete not only hired illegal immigrants but he paid them more than $2 million under the table, which meant he didn’t pay nearly $480,000 in payroll taxes or worker’s compensation insurance.
David’s attorney Bruce Reinhart said his client hired the illegal workers at his Riviera Beach firm because they were longtime friends, good workers and he couldn’t find American-born or documented workers to do the job.
Marra didn’t buy it.
“Mr. David said he needed these workers. That means he needed these worker at a price he was willing to pay,” Marra said. “There’s a profit motive here.”
As to Reinhart’s claim that the practice is widespread in the construction industry, Marra said that’s exactly why David had to be punished.
“People need to know there’s serious consequences for this behavior,” he said.
David, who faced a maximum five years in prison, was sentenced to 16 months behind bars. He has already repaid the IRS and the insurance company. The lenient sentence, Marra said, was spurred by the numerous people wrote letters or spoke on David’s behalf.
Among those who spoke at the hearing was Tory Buckley. His daughter, 17-year-old softball player Amanda, was murdered in 2007. Buckley told how David worked tirelessly to make the Amanda J. Buckley Memorial Field of Dreams in Palm Beach Gardens a reality.
“Why did he do it?” Buckley asked, his voice choked with emotion. “His integrity as a man.”
However, an attorney who represented a former Sun Deck supervisor who helped David mask his hiring practices, said his behavior wasn’t always honorable.
When David discovered that Juan Gonzalez was helping the feds unravel the shell companies he had created to hide his illegal business practices, he fired Gonzalez, said David Garvin, who represented Gonzalez.
Prosecutors acknowledged that Gonzalez, 49, of West Palm Beach, had helped them build the case. Gonzalez apologized for being involved in the scheme. He didn’t ask for mercy.
Still, Marra said, because of his cooperation he would spend less time behind bars than his former boss. He sentenced him to 10 months in prison.
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