Verizon subcontractors charged with hiring illegal immigrants
By TIM MCGLONE, The Virginian-Pilot
© October 31, 2007 | Last updated 5:30 PM Oct. 31



NORFOLK

Federal authorities today arrested a Verizon Communications' father-and-son subcontractor on charges of employing and housing undocumented immigrants.

The case stems from a May traffic stop on Interstate 264 in which state troopers discovered a van full of illegal immigrants working on a Verizon subcontract digging ditches for fiber optic lines.

U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement agents spent the past five months building a case against B&B Cable and its owners, the Buttery family of Midland in Fauquier County.

Robert R. Buttery Sr. and his son, Robert R. Buttery Jr., were brought into U.S. District Court in Norfolk for their first appearance today. Authorities were searching for a third defendant, Betty Jean Buttery.

A federal magistrate ordered the two men jailed pending a bond hearing Friday afternoon. Each is charged with employing, transporting and harboring undocumented immigrants and money laundering.

Court records unsealed today show that many of the 14 undocumented B&B workers arrested during the May traffic stop have been cooperating with immigration authorities. They are currently being processed for deportation.

One worker told agents that he was paid by B&B $100 per day for a 12-hour shift minus $60 a week for housing and utilities, according to the records. That works out to about $9 an hour for a five-day work week. Some said they were put up in a house off Oceana Boulevard in Virginia Beach.

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B&B was hired by the Greensboro, N.C.-based, Ivy H. Smith company, which held the Verizon contract.

Officials with both Smith and Verizon said in May that they knew nothing of B&B’s hiring of illegal immigrants and said they would be investigating.

The court records say that Smith and Verizon employees were frequently on the work sites when the undocumented immigrants were on the job. Some of the workers told authorities that B&B, Ivy Smith and Verizon never asked them for green cards, identifications, social security numbers or any proof that they were legally in the country. Only one of the 14 spoke English.

An Ivy Smith official did not respond to inquiries from The Virginian-Pilot this afternoon.

A spokesman for Verizon said policy changes were made in an attempt to ensure that illegal immigrants are not employed by contractors or subcontractors. Independent audits are done of employee records of any firm hired by Verizon or its contractors, said the spokesman, Harry Mitchell.

“We have zero tolerance for this,â€