When Lore Lipkvich answered an ad for a bookkeeping job with a company called Choice Auto Sales in July 2021, she had been on unemployment for some time.
She went to drop off her resume at Choice Auto’s listed address on Perry Road, but she stayed in her car and looked at the building, which had no cars outside, no visible lights on or anyone inside.
She got the job, but only worked for six days. More than a year later, Lipkvich still hasn’t been paid a cent for her time.
Lipkvich is one of the many people to whom Nathan Reardon, the man behind Choice Auto Sales, owes back wages.
Reardon has a constellation of dozens of companies in his name that have left in their wake unpaid wages, unpaid taxes, $100,000 in fines for labor violations and code violations that led city officials to condemn a major section of the Bangor Mall.
But while a federal judge on Wednesday sentenced Reardon to 20 months in prison for fraudulently obtaining a $60,000 Paycheck Protection Program loan from the federal government in 2020, the prison time and the restitution he’s been ordered to pay won’t help people like Lipkvich.
“Where does that leave me and many others?” Lipkvich said. “As far as I know, it’s a law that when you hire someone you pay them. If that’s the law, why isn’t the law enforcing it? I mean, why do I have to jump through all these hoops to get paid?”
After working for Reardon for six days, Lipkvich said she would ask him every two weeks where her paycheck was. At the time, she...
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