Posted on 03/07/2008 4:47:22 PM PST by csvset
NORFOLK - A contractor who hired illegal immigrants to dig ditches for a Verizon project was sentenced Friday to 14 months in prison.
Robert Buttery Sr., 53, of Fauquier County, pleaded guilty to hiring, housing and transporting the undocumented workers for his company, B&B Cable. He was caught after a state trooper stopped a van on Interstate 264 last summer and discovered 14 of his workers in the back.
U.S. District Judge Jerome B. Friedman denied a request from Buttery’s attorney to spare his client jail time.
The lawyer, George Yates of Virginia Beach, pleaded with the judge to take a political stand.
“Mr. Buttery is a small potato,” Yates said. “There are millions of Americans committing crimes by hiring illegal aliens and we turn the other way.”
“I don’t quite understand where you’re coming from,” Friedman said.
“I’m just asking the court to put this in context,” Yates said, noting there are an estimated 20 million illegal immigrants working in the country.
“Depending on who gets elected, it may very well be legal to hire these people,” Yates continued. “John McCain doesn’t want to send them back. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama don’t want to send them back.”
“My job is to follow the law,” Friedman interrupted, adding that he cannot be concerned about political matters.
Assistant U.S. Attorney James Metcalfe argued that Buttery could have faced substantial more time had the government decided to indict him on money laundering and tax evasion charges.
Metcalfe said the Buttery operation grossed $1.8 million in about four years of employing illegal immigrants and in that time the company paid no Social Security or Medicare taxes.
The government is seeking $250,000 in restitution, but Yates informed the court that Buttery is broke.
The Buttery company hired dozens of illegal immigrants to dig ditches for Verizon’s fiber-optic lines. Workers were paid $100 per day for a 12-hour shift minus $60 a week for housing and utilities, according to court records. Some said they were put up in a house off Oceana Boulevard in Virginia Beach.
B&B was hired by Ivy H. Smith Inc., a Greensboro, N.C.-based company that was a subcontractor for Fiber Technology Construction Inc., of Canton, Ga., that held a contract with Verizon Communications. Neither company has been accused of any wrongdoing.
“You can’t afford it.”
Not only can we afford it...we can afford a bounty too...
How about something as simple as deportation … we can’t afford not to.
I guess, if we punish all who hire, thoes that get hired will go home ( and miss all their free welfare, education and medical benefits), doubtful … once they suckle on the American tit, they are here to stay unless we punish them in ways other then sending them home. They got here once, they will make it back. Not so much arguing with you as looking for a solution. ;-)
Maybe a Visit with the prison “Booty-Bandit”
Contractors took over my job as a lineman with SWBT; 28 years and 2 months.
I agree with you he should spend the rest of his days picking up garbage for fifty cents an hour, when on the prison work detail.
Wrong, when he started providing housing and charging them for it they became employees. The whole independent contractor law need to be re-written.
Quisling traitor bastard.
No, they definitely are not.
They would not pass the "20 Questions" test. And even so, he did not even make a pretense of getting I-9s and then filling them out and sending them each year.
Correction: getting I-9s and then sending out 1099-MISC forms for each employee, each year.
Why would 1099 workers need to go through all that? Ditto W-2, ditto any LEGAL worker?
The real criminal here is Verizon. They use these contractors and subcontractors to do all their cable laying. They know well that they will be employing illegals. They couldn’t avoid noticing it when they come out to check the work.
They use this scheme so that they can say “we don’t hire illegals.”
If Verizon was serious about NOT hiring illegals for their work, they could write into their contracts with these guys that they will not hire illegals for any work done for Verizon.
This guy should be sharing a jail cell with some Verizon executives. But Verizon is one of the biggest contributors to both parties, so don’t expect the Feds to crack down on them.
That's a good idea. Send these people that knowingly hire illegals down to the border to build that wall.
Yup, I remember it well. How about that union representation? How well I remember we voted to strike, they over rode our vote, and they gave in to forced overtime. It was never the same after that.
I can't wait to see the Dems faces when the elite override their votes to put in who they want. It just seems we are all too dumb to know what we want.
Yikes! We have done EXTENSIVE remodeling at our house. New roof, new AC system, all new interior paint, new floors, new kitchen, new bathrooms. Some of our workers spoke no English. I didn’t hire them, I hired a contractor, and he hired a subcontractor, and the crews were sometimes all guys who speak only Spanish. I think I will send this thread to my contractor.
But here in South Texas a large majority of our population is from Mexico, and we have no way of knowing who is legal. When our son went to Texas Tech University they told us that Lubbock was mainly white but the surrounding towns were 80% Hispanic. I don’t see how we can send 80% of any population of any town back to Mexico, plus their children were all born here.
I am wondering if there should be a statute of limiations. Like if your family has been here 20-30-50 years you should be able to stay, if you work, speak English, have committed no crimes, even speeding tickets. Other wise in Texas we will have many ghost towns if we send everyone “home”. Many of these people never lived in Mexico. And none of their kids ever lived there.
These are hard workers, working 16 hours a day, 6 days a week, just happy to be here, LOVING USA.
I say keep these America lovers and send the democrats like Michelle Obama to Mexico, since she isn’t so proud to be here.
I don’t remember a strike overide but I remember the forced overtime and giving up job bidding.
The company played the overtime like a fiddle and the union did nothing about it. If you were within fifteen minutes of your forced overtime max you were told to clock out but report on your day off for a full shift because if you had overtime left to work you had to complete a full work day once you reported.
How about this from Verizon:
Verizon Foundation Awards $1 Million Grant to the National Council of La Raza
http://www.redorbit.com/news/business/1009351/verizon_foundation_awards_1_million_grant_to_the_national_council/index.html
or these grants
* El Centro de la Raza - Seattle $10,000
* Washington State Hispanic Bar Association Scholarship
Foundation - Seattle $5,000
Send these people that knowingly hire illegals down to the border to build that wall.
The problem with your "plan" is that most illegal aliens have committed crimes. These include ID theft, document fraud, social security fraud, conspiracy to violate immigration laws, income tax evasion, welfare fraud, food stamp fraud ....
“Workers were paid $100 per day for a 12-hour shift minus $60 a week for housing and utilities,...”
Yikes.
This slob got off lucky with 14 months.
140 years would have been more appropriate.
Yuh know oldbill, it is quite ironic that you damn Verizon, for making possible your above comment, it's akin to al gore riding in a limosine to a speech damning the evils of the internal combustion engine.
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