JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A father and son, who own construction subcontracting companies in Jacksonville, face a maximum of five years in prison if convicted on federal charges, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
A news release Friday states that Raul Solis, 52, and his son, Raul Solis-Martinez, 32, pleaded guilty to conspiring to defraud the Internal Revenue Service and to unlawfully employ workers who were neither lawfully admitted to, nor authorized to be employed in, the United States.
Plea agreements state the father and son owned and operated Solis Brothers Company, LLC and Duval Framing, LLC, which are construction subcontracting companies in Jacksonville. The Attorney’s Office said they conspired with each other and the owner of another contractor to pay their employee’s partially “off the books” to illicitly lower labor costs.
The plea agreements state they avoided withholding the full amount of payroll taxes owed to the IRS, and investigators determined between 2014 and 2019, their workers received more than $22 million in wages not reported to the IRS.
The U.S. Attorneys Office said the father and son also defrauded the company that managed their payroll functions as well as their workers’ compensation insurer. The news release states that Solis and Solis-Martinez also knew that many of their employees had immigrated to the United States illegally or weren’t authorized to work in the U.S.
Both have agreed pay restitution to the IRS in the amount of $5.6 million.
A sentencing date had not yet been scheduled by publication of this article.