Thu, Oct 07, 2010 Mike McKinney
Projo.com
PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- A man who lawyers say spent five years in a forced labor camp in Cambodia when the Khmer Rouge ruled it in the 1970s was sentenced Friday in federal court in Providence to two years in prison and ordered to pay the U.S. government more than $14 million in workers' taxes.
Cheang Chea, 73 (pictured), owner of S&P Temporary Help Service Inc., pleaded guilty in June to tax evasion, theft from a health-care benefit program and mail fraud. He was also sentenced by U.S. District Chief Judge Mary M. Lisi to three years' home confinement.
At Thursday's sentencing hearing, prosecutor Dulce Donovan recommended a 46-month prison sentence and, along with the restitution of the workers' taxes, wanted a $75,000 fine imposed.
But defense lawyer Geoffrey Nathan, saying the man experienced horrors in Cambodia, that he has sent money to help people in Cambodia, and that he is willing to pay back money, urged a sentence of home confinement. Nathan said that he came to America weighing 69 pounds.
The prosecution has said that, since 2003, the defendant ran S&P Temporary Help Service, based in Providence, and that it supplied hundreds of workers to about 30 Rhode Island companies.
Cheang Chea, 73 (pictured), owner of S&P Temporary Help Service Inc., pleaded guilty in June to tax evasion, theft from a health-care benefit program and mail fraud. He was also sentenced by U.S. District Chief Judge Mary M. Lisi to three years' home confinement.
At Thursday's sentencing hearing, prosecutor Dulce Donovan recommended a 46-month prison sentence and, along with the restitution of the workers' taxes, wanted a $75,000 fine imposed.
But defense lawyer Geoffrey Nathan, saying the man experienced horrors in Cambodia, that he has sent money to help people in Cambodia, and that he is willing to pay back money, urged a sentence of home confinement. Nathan said that he came to America weighing 69 pounds.
The prosecution has said that, since 2003, the defendant ran S&P Temporary Help Service, based in Providence, and that it supplied hundreds of workers to about 30 Rhode Island companies.
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