Florida company and former employee plead guilty to conspiring to harbor aliens by means of employment

Date: Oct. 28, 2024

Contact: [email protected]

MIAMI - Today, Martinez Builders Supply, LLC, d/b/a East Coast Truss (ECT), a Florida limited liability company, pled guilty in federal court in Fort Pierce to conspiring to harbor aliens by means of employment. On Aug. 29, Kelly Yanira Del Valle (Del Valle), a former employee of ECT, also pled guilty to conspiring to harbor aliens by means of employment, as well as filing false tax returns and aiding the filing of false tax returns. As part of their guilty pleas, ECT agreed to a forfeiture judgment in the amount $450,000, and Del Valle agreed to a forfeiture judgment in the amount $100,000 and to pay restitution to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in the amount of $100,146.

As part of the plea documents filed with the Court, ECT and Del Valle admitted that several of ECT's officers and employees, including Del Valle, conspired to harbor aliens by means of employment from June 1, 2018, through Aug. 6, 2021. Specifically, in June 2018, Del Valle, who was employed by ECT at the time, the president and managing member of ECT, and an officer manager at ECT, met at ECT and agreed to "transfer" certain aliens employed by ECT, who were not authorized to work in the United States, to Hollys Services, a company set up by Del Valle, so that they would no longer appear on ECT's payroll. ECT agreed to pay Del Valle a fee for each alien on Hollys Services' payroll that worked at ECT. Del Valle agreed to recruit and hire additional aliens to work for ECT, who were not authorized to work in the United States, under the guise of Hollys Services, and later Quality Control. Hollys Services and Quality Control were formed by Del Valle for the express purpose of concealing, harboring, and shielding aliens who worked at ECT from detection by law enforcement. These actions were in response to an Employment Eligibility Verification Form I-9 audit conducted by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) in May 2018 that identified dozens of ECT employees that were aliens not authorized to work in the United States. Specifically, on or about June 18, 2018, several of the employees HSI identified during its Form I-9 audit, a mechanism used to verify the identity and legal authorization to work of all paid employees in the U.S., were transferred from ECT's payroll yet continued to work for ECT, while purportedly being employed and paid by Hollys Services, and later Quality Control.

During the conspiracy, ECT, through its agents acting within the scope of their employment, transferred over $1,150,000 to a bank account set up by Del Valle in the name of Hollys Services, and $2,200,000 to a bank account Del Valle set up in the name of Quality Control. Some of the transferred funds were earmarked for the express purpose of paying the aliens who worked at ECT.

On Aug. 6, 2021, law enforcement executed a search warrant at ECT's headquarters in Saint Lucie County, Fla., and discovered 28 of the 58 employees present to be aliens who were not authorized to work in the United States.

On a date to be determined, U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon will sentence ECT and Del Valle in Fort Pierce. Del Valle faces a possible maximum sentence of 16 years in federal prison. ECT faces up to five years of probation, and a maximum fine of $500,000, or twice the gross loss or twice the gross gain caused by the offense, whichever is greater. Judge Cannon will determine ECT and Del Valle's sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

U.S. Attorney Markenzy Lapointe for the Southern District of Florida, Special Agent in Charge Matthew D. Line of the IRS Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI), Miami Field Office, and Special Agent in Charge Anthony Salisbury of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), Miami, made the announcement.

The IRS-CI Miami Field Office and HSI Fort Pierce investigated the case. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael D. Porter. Assistant U.S. Attorney Sara Klco is handling asset forfeiture.

IRS-CI is the criminal investigative arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money-laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. IRS-CI special agents are the only federal law enforcement agents with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code, obtaining a more than a 90 percent federal conviction rate. The agency has 20 field offices located across the U.S. and 12 attaché posts abroad.