Business in brief: Border fence firm execs sentenced
Two executives at a company that once helped build a fence to keep illegal immigrants from crossing the Mexican border were sentenced Wednesday to six months of home confinement for hiring undocumented workers.
Mel Kay, founder, chairman and president of Golden State Fence Co., and manager Michael McLaughlin had pleaded guilty in federal court to knowingly hiring illegal aliens. U.S. District Judge Barry Ted Moskowitz ordered each to serve 1,040 hours of community service and spend three years on probation.
Kay was fined $200,000 as part of a plea agreement, and McLaughlin agreed to pay $100,000.
Federal prosecutors took the rare step of 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.
Washington
Enron attorneys accused of fraud
The Securities and Exchange Commission charged two former in-house attorneys at Enron Corp. with civil securities fraud Wednesday, as the agency continues to unravel a web of complex transactions and alleged corporate deception more than five years after the once high-flying energy company collapsed into bankruptcy.
The charges against Jordan Mintz, who was general counsel of Enron’s global finance group, and Rex Rogers, the associate general counsel, were filed in a civil lawsuit in federal court in Houston.
Attorneys for Mintz and Rogers denied the SEC’s allegations and said their clients will contest them.
IRS collection program OK’d
A Treasury Department auditor on Wednesday gave passing marks to the Internal Revenue Service’s new private debt collection program while cautioning that measures still need to be taken to protect the security of taxpayer information.
“A small number of issues still need to be addressed,” said J. Russell George, Treasury inspector general for tax administration.
The IRS began the program last September with three private collection agencies contracted to pursue more than 11,000 balance-due accounts. Since then the contractors have collected about $14.5 million in gross revenues.