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."
There is a silver lining here. If more illegals beat up their employers, maybe fewer would find employment.
Any politician whether they are local or national who supports and won’t do anything about illegals should be charged with treason!
I’m sick of the whole lot of them from the WH on down.
We were told quite clearly at Appamottox, 1865.
This is the ROOT of the problem: criminal invaders have NO rights in our home, they illegally broke in, and expect to be treated as part of the "American family", which is B.S. to the nth degree. They are entitled to NOTHING, and should be deported immediately upon capture for their illegal entry.
Er. ‘Appomattox,’ too.
Let's face it - people are immoral and theft and greed are at the heart of all human transactions.
On the other hand - more rationally :), $18/hr to illegal immigrants for ripping shingles off roofs? I don't believe it.
I agree. I truly, truly, deeply love this country but more and more I’m beginning to hate it as well.
No. This is not very sad. It's very sad when we hear people like Sapone saying this everyday with complete impunity.
We hear nothing about breaking the law by entering the US illegally, committing crime after crime after crime, with no punishment meted.
Do we have to hear about how bad it is to legally breaking up the families of lawbreakers to enforce the law?
I say, start breaking the criminals' heads –same as they are raping, murdering, robbing, DUI-driving- and/or throw them out with their illegal families and anchor babies.
Let's get done with it! Apply Mexican Law to Mexican illegals in the US, which will take care of them quite humanely!
In Arkansas this could easily happen with the one dollar given to Senor Huckabee that time.
A Jitney is a small bus, like a trolly. We have several here as public transport.
The first was put into service by an exmayor named Jitney who was dredged up to have the ceremony for the bus having the same name.
Possible deportation? Have them make restitution or serve time and then kick their sorry behinds back across the Rio Grande. Of course Jorge has that open invitation for them to cross over as many times as they wish.
ping
Oh, so that’s what all those big buses are with Mexican writing all over them clogging up I35. They even have a taco vendor who pulls onto the frontage road near south of Austin near Bud. The bus parks dangerously on the edge of the highway while the passengers jump out causing accidents of US citizens trying to avoid hitting them.
And there’s another bus that stops regularly at a convenience store in Temple, TX. That’s just two of the dozens around here. And ICE is nowhere to be found.
Just keep heading south. You'll get home.
I'm speechless.
Whatever happened to prosecuting "aiding and abetting criminal behavior"? I see a lot of targets here.
The three men boarded a jitney bus. The officer forced the men to get off.
One officer doing his job. Took something of a risk to some extent. I put the name of the lawyer for the men- Edward Sapone, on Google. Not to disrespect the man and his profession, but he is one sharp lawyer.
The problem is that it is likely that he does not see what his actions engender. That of massive sums of public monies going down the drain. Who suffers? Fellow called Doakes.
This incident really highlights what it’s all about- modern slavery.
It doesn’t just happen to illegals from Mexico either, many Chinese illegals are hidden away in NY City, to slave for pennies they may not get paid, and live in squalor provided usually by the employer.
Those that condone and support illegal labor in this country are promoting slavery- whether they admit it or not.
Now I know why you're a liberal.
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