Construction Company Owner Sentenced For Pocketing Part Of His Employees' Pay

BELTSVILLE, MD — A 43-year-old Beltsville man has been sentenced for not paying his employees their full wages.

Jose Walter Marquez Rivera, owns Congratulations Construction Inc., a construction company headquartered in Prince George’s County. According to court documents, Congratulations provided drywall carpenters and laborers on two construction projects in Prince George’s County: University of Maryland Capital Region Cancer Center and the University of Maryland Field Hockey and Women’s Lacrosse Complex. For these projects, employers were required to pay their workers the prevailing wage determined by the Commissioner of Labor and Industry and to submit certified payroll demonstrating that they had done so.

An investigation by the Office of the Attorney General revealed that, although certified payroll records submitted to the state claimed that the workers had been paid the prevailing wage, these claims were false. Instead, using varying methods, including employing false payroll names, Marque paid his workers at a substantially lower rate than required by law and certified to the state.

He has been sentenced to 90 days in jail followed by five years of supervised probation for one count of theft scheme having a value of $100,000 or more. Marquez also will be required to pay $291,333.07 in restitution.