NBCSanDiego.com March 28, 2007
SAN DIEGO -- Two executives of a Southern California fencing company were sentenced to home detention Wednesday for knowingly hiring illegal immigrants.
Mel Kay, founder, chairman and president of Golden State Fence Co., and company manager Michael McLaughlin, were ordered to spend six months in home confinement.
Their company, based in Riverside with an office in Oceanside, was in charge of building a portion of the fence along the U.S. Mexico border. There is no evidence illegal immigrants worked on that project.
Both men had previously pleaded guilty to felony charges of knowingly hiring illegal immigrants.
U.S. District Judge Barry Ted Moskowitz also ordered the two executives to log 1,040 hours of community service and spend three on probation.
Kay was also fined $200,000 as part of a plea agreement, and McLaughlin agreed to pay $100,000.
Federal prosecutors were seeking prison time after the men acknowledged hiring at least 10 illegal immigrants in 2004 and 2005. The charges carried a maximum possible penalty of five years in prison.
Federal authorities said they found no evidence that illegal immigrants were hired in the late 1990s while the company built 6,100 feet of the 14-mile fence near the Otay Mesa border crossing in San Diego.
The company itself pleaded guilty in December to knowingly hiring undocumented workers from 1999 to 2005 and agreed to pay a $4.7 million fine, one of the largest for immigration violations.
Kay apologized before he was sentenced saying, "I feel I have paid a tremendous price."
Copyright 2007 by NBCSandiego.com. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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