Posted on 12/22/2007 6:41:58 AM PST by AuntB
Martin Coyotecatl-Aca, his younger brother Jesus and a friend, Ricardo Gonzales-Gutierez worked for 10 hours as day laborers ripping shingles off a roof. At the end of the two days, they said, their boss refused to pay them for one of the days.
What happened next is in dispute. The three now are sitting in the Passaic County Jail, charged with robbery and facing possible deportation, according to Detective Capt. Robert Rowan of the Clifton Police Department.
A lawyer for the three Mexican nationals, whose names were supplied by police and who all live in Passaic, say the men are innocent. Edward Sapone, who was hired by the Mexican Consulate, said the men were engaged in a wage dispute with a drunken contractor who harmed himself and who falsely implicated them. He acknowledged that the three are in the country illegally.
Diana Mejia, president of Wind of the Spirit, a Morristown-based immigrant rights group, has worked with the Passaic day laborers and said their story demonstrates how the lack of regulation over immigrant laborers can prove disastrous.
Rowan gave this account of the incident.
A little after 9 p.m. Saturday in Clifton, a plainclothes officer cruising along Main Avenue near Harding Avenue observed a man who appeared to be in distress. He was in a doorway, leaning over on his knees up against a wall. The three men allegedly were standing in front of him. The officer turned his car around and saw that the three men had gone to a nearby parking lot and stood in front of a white van that police said was the contractor's vehicle.
The three men boarded a jitney bus. The officer stopped the bus and forced the men to get off.
The officer said the 29-year-old man who had been in the doorway had a large amount of blood on his mouth and wrist. The man, who spoke only Polish, told police through an interpreter that the men had beaten him up and robbed him of his tools. The police report said the man appeared to have been drinking. Police did not test him for alcohol because he was not driving, Rowan said.
The three men, who spoke only Spanish, told police through an interpreter that they had been working all day in Jersey City and that the Polish man, whom they were working for, said that he had to drive to a bank in order to get money to pay them, Rowan said.
The man said he had never met the three Mexican nationals before.
According to the police report, Martin Coyotecatl-Aca was carrying a large black bag filled with nail guns, Rowan said. The men told police that when the man refused to pay them, they took his nail guns, Rowan said.
The two brothers, Martin Coyotecatl-Aca, 26, and Jesus Coyotecatl-Aca, 30, were being held Thursday at the Passaic County Jail on bail of $75,000 while Gonzales-Gutierez, 27, was being held there on $100,000 bail, Rowan said.
Rowan said that police, suspecting the three are in the country illegally, notified immigration authorities of the arrest, in accordance with an attorney general's directive. They face deportation.
"Even if it was true that these men worked for the victim all day, and he didn't pay them, it would not allow them to assault him or take his nail guns," Rowan said in a telephone interview Thursday.
Rowan said that when the men were arrested they never mentioned any agreement that the tools were to be given as collateral.
On Thursday, Sapone, the lawyer, sat in at the day laborers center in Passaic on Parker Avenue, behind The Home Depot. Fabian Gallindo, the center's de facto leader, was present along with Martin Coyotecatl-Aca's wife, Eugenia Ricoy, and her son Kevin, 4 .
Sapone said that the day laborers had a verbal agreement with the contractor, who picked them up at the center. Ricoy said that her husband speaks a little bit of English and that the Polish contractor spoke a little bit too. Gallindo, who visited the men in jail, said the men understood that they would keep the tools as collateral for payment -- $180 a day per person. The day laborers said they did not touch the man, but that he showed up at the bank drunk and unwilling to pay them, Gallindo said.
"It would be a very sad ending if these three men who were here to work hard and put food on the table, who put in honest work and weren't paid and were then arrested, would be forced to separate from their children," Sapone said.
Gallindo said that day laborers often face this type of abuse, with long hours in extreme heat and cold, and contractors who leave them with nothing.
"They bring us to places like Atlantic City and other places we don't know," Gallindo said in Spanish. "After eight hours they say, 'Just 20 minutes more,' and that becomes three hours. If we protest, they won't pay us, or they'll leave us there to find our way home."
Immigrant advocates have been pushing for legislation to regulate the shady arrangements between day laborers and contractors. Rep. Luis Gutierrez , D-Ill., introduced a bill in 2003 called the Day Labor Fairness and Protection Act, to give day laborers certain rights. It was never voted on.
In 2006, the first national study on the life of day laborers, "Day Labor in the United States," found that of the approximately 117,600 working in this country, the median salary is $10 an hour and it is unlikely they earn more than $15,000 a year.
The report found that day laborers regularly suffer employer abuse with almost half of all day laborers experiencing at least one instance of wage theft and 44 percent being denied food and water breaks on the job. The study found that merchants and police often unfairly target day laborers while they seek work, with 9 percent having been arrested and 11 percent ticketed by police while they search for employment.
Marcela Ospina, a spokeswoman with the New Jersey Department of Labor, said the men could file a wage-collection complaint.
"If you are a worker, we don't inquire about your status; we are just concerned about getting your wages," she said, adding that workers can call 609-292-2305 to file a complaint.
Mejia, of Wind of the Spirit, said that day laborers need to organize so that if there are instances of abuse, they have someone to back them up.
"The idea is that people who organize in some sort of center, this can help them more," Mejia said in Spanish. "Workers can learn their rights through a center and evade these abuses."
Ya gotta love the part about NONE of them speaking English, even the Polish contractor!
Screw ‘em. Send ‘em back where they came from if they aren’t here legally...and keep their money!
Is it the model of Mexican transportation she got pregnant in?
And what is a Jitney bus? I live in the United States, and I've never seen nor heard of a Jitney bus before.
The problem of illegal immigration should be handled first and foremost at the border.
As a second line of defense, employers who knowingly hire illegals should be heavily fined and the employees deported.
As for those who try to rip any laborer off, legal or illegal, and run, in effect, a slave-labor operation, they should be heavily fined and spend some time in jail.
There are no good actors here, from the US government on down.
Wow... getting your butt kicked by Jesus... who is going to believe that?
They are two "wrongs" here. If we fixed the immigration problem, they both would go away.
“And what is a Jitney bus? I live in the United States, and I’ve never seen nor heard of a Jitney bus before.”
It’s not your Daddy’s USA anymore....
A ‘Jitney’ is an illegal, unlicensed ... uh UNDOCUMENTED’ (sarc) vehicle that drives people for a fee. In big city ghettos they have ‘Jitney Cabs’.
The 'Jitney Bus' musat be a new 'immigrant' thing :-)
Well, then don't come here to work illegally. Problem solved!
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Gallindo, who visited the men in jail, said the men understood that they would keep the tools as collateral for payment -- $180 a day per person.
$180 a day per person? For illegal alien day laborers? That's $18 per hour for their "10 hour day". Not likely!
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"It would be a very sad ending if these three men who were here to work hard and put food on the table, who put in honest work and weren't paid who beat the crap out of their boss and stole his tools and were then arrested, would be forced to separate from their children," Sapone said.
There, fixed it.
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Why are their children here instead of back home? Who pays for their day care or schooling? What do they do when they get sick?
Do you know how many Europreans, Asians, Africans and South Americans come here and work hard to send money home to their families? I personally know many. Why is it that the mexicans are the only ones who get to bring the whole village with them at our expense?
Oh yes it would! What are these guys gonna do? Take him to court? If you hire illegal immigrants you get what you deserve.
The US courts are not available to them. Deport them. Case closed.
It’s odd that this “Polish contractor” is never named, almost as odd as “Coyotecatl-Aca” for a Mexican surname.
But, as far as I’m concerned, these three scammers got scammed themselves. All parties involved broke the law, and should be hauled before a judge. Assault and battery, theft, immigration violations and probably identity theft for the three. Tax evasion at a minimum for the unnamed Polish contractor.
It is because they can just walk over the border!
Why are they not facing Certain Deportation?
I knew that....my question is why do we allow/encourage it.
I can’t take anyone’s side on this one. The immigrants are breaking the law by being here, and the guy who got beat up is a bum looking for cheap labor, and then cheating them out of their money.
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I guess it depends on where in the US you live. Jitneys are well known around NYC/LI. The most famous is the 'Hamptons Jitney' that delivers folks from NYC to the East End.
Sections of Queens and Brooklyn run unlicensed "gypsy" 15 passenger vans along City Bus routes. They charge charge less and are more flexible about where they will stop to take on or drop off passengers. They are also called jitneys.
We need Judge Judy or Judge Mathis to sort this all out.
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