Irvine man sentenced for stealing wages from employees

An Irvine man who cheated employees at his construction company out of more than $220,000 in wages on municipal projects pleaded guilty and was sentenced Monday to one year in jail and five years of probation.

An Orange County Superior Court judge also ordered Mustafa Mohamed Bdaiwi, 43, to pay $220,463.38 in restitution, prosecutors said.

According to the charges against him, Bdaiwi threatened to fire employees at his Irvine-based company, Malcon Civils Inc., if they didn’t return portions of their wages to him after they’d been paid.

He did this on two construction jobs for the cities of Hemet and Irvine between 2010 and 2011, according to prosecutors. Authorities said Bdaiwi’s work on the Irvine project didn’t last. He was assigned to build a wall at an Irvine elementary school, but after the job was done, the wall had to be removed because of faulty construction, prosecutors said.

To cover up the theft during these two jobs, Bdaiwi and his foreman forged payroll documents to make it seem as though their workers were being paid the full amount due, according to the Orange County district attorney’s office.

Bdaiwi’s foreman, a 41-year-old Antonio Naranjo Jr. of Costa Mesa, pleaded guilty in March to 11 felony counts of taking and receiving a portion of a worker’s wage on public works project and two felony counts of recording a false and forged instrument.

He was sentenced to 4 1/2 years in prison, which was added to the two years and eight months he was already serving for a 2012 Newport Beach burglary.

Bdaiwi pleaded guilty Monday to nine misdemeanor counts of willful failure to pay employment tax and one felony count each of taking and receiving a portion of a worker’s wage on a public works project, misrepresenting facts to state compensation insurance fund, and recording a false and forged instrument.

He pleaded guilty to a sentencing enhancement for property loss over $200,000.