Healy-Rae and GAA star write letters of support for Kerry siblings ahead of NY fraud trial
Navillus Photo: Contracting
“Helen and Dónal didn’t hire me or people like me to take advantage of us and save some money. Truth is, these jobs could have easily been completed without me and the others like me. I firmly believed they hired us to help us. Many of the people I worked side by side with were workers who otherwise wouldn’t have had a job.”
So wrote Vincent La Penta, former Navillus employee, in a letter to Judge Pamela Chen, of the US District Court, in the Eastern District of New York, who will today decide whether to jail Kerry siblings, Dónal and Helen O’Sullivan, for their role in a multi-year payroll fraud, that deprived union workers of certain benefits, that should have been paid on their behalf into unions benefits funds.
Earlier this week, Pádraig Naughton (50), the former financial controller at Navillus, a major New York building firm, was handed a jail term by Judge Chen for his role in the fraudulent pay scheme. The sentence of one year and one day was for each of 11 counts of felony—to run concurrently—that he and the O’Sullivans were convicted off in 2021.
Mr Naughton, a US citizen and father-of-two, with connections in Co. Tipperary, who emigrated to the States in 1998, was also sentenced to two years of supervised release, with conditions, for each of the 11 counts, to run concurrently. He is set to begin serving his custodial sentence next November, with leave to appeal.
While the US government is also in favour of a custodial term for the O’Sullivan siblings—Dónal is the owner, founder and former President of Navillus and Helen was the payroll administrator—more than 450 letters in support of the Ballinskelligs Two have been submitted to Judge Chen, ahead of the sentencing today.
The letter writers are from a “vast network” (as per court documents) of family, friends, employees, former employees and business associates from their native Kerry and overseas.
They include some familiar names such as Michael Healy-Rae, Kerry football legend Maurice Fitzgerald and Leslie Buckley, former chair of Independent News & Media and founder of The Haven, a charity set up in the wake of the Haiti earthquake disaster, supported by Irish businessman Denis O’Brien.
Dónal helped set up The Haven’s New York office and introduced the foundation to his “vast network” of potential donors and supporters, Mr Buckley wrote.
The letters, essentially a plea for leniency, outline how the O’Sullivans came from a working-class, farming background, were well-reared, hard-working people, generous to a fault with their time and money, dedicated to their community, of high moral fibre and, in general, all-round good eggs.
While the letters formed part of a sealed submission (three volumes of letters in Dónal’s case, totaling c350, and c120 in support of Helen), excerpts were released following a request from the and permission (obtained by the defendants) from the letter writers.
The picture they paint of Dónal’s early life is one where “times were hard and money was scarce”. Michael Healy Rae outlined how the quality of housing and infrastructure left a lot to be desired. There was no running water, electricity or bathrooms until Dónal was in his teens.
Dónal and his family worked the farm constantly—he went to school by day, and did chores on the family farm after school, one letter said. Another outlined how he made a great impression on his elders, even at an early age.
His school guidance counselor and sports coach, who knew him for five years, stated: “I found Dónal to be a young man of great integrity, always co-operative, popular with both fellow students and teachers, possessing great empathy, always positive, great leadership skills, excellent sense of humor and a great work ethic.”
When the Recession hit in the 80s, Dónal emigrated, aged 23, to the US “with just a few hundred dollars in his pocket”, along with his brothers Leonard and Kevin. They arrived in New York in 1985.
After a few years, they formed their own tiling company, called Navillus (Sullivan backwards), and were joined by Helen a few years later. Navillus went on to become one of New York City’s largest concrete and masonry subcontractors and then general contractors, on many major construction projects, including the 9/11 Memorial, with a workforce of over 1,000 at any given time.
Leonard subsequently returned to Ireland and Kevin started his own company in New York, Time Square Construction, leaving Dónal as Navillus’s sole owner. Dónal remained in charge of the company until shortly after the indictment in this case, when he stepped aside in 2020.
Dónal’s charitable nature is also highlighted in the letters of support. He is described as “one of those rare breeds” who “goes out of his way to help other people, even strangers, even at his own personal expense. There are people put on this Earth to help make it a better place. Dónal O’Sullivan is one of those people.”
His ex-wife’s sister states that Dónal is “the most compassionate, hardworking and generous man I know.” Specific examples of Dónal’s charitable actions include organizing and funding numerous disaster relief efforts, including in Southeast Queens, after Hurricane Sandy in 2012.
A former executive assistant of Dónal’s recalls how “our entire company, from the office staff to the labor, was directed to report to a church parking lot in Belle-Harbor, Queens. With 2 small tents, a truck full of shovels and buckets, some water pumps, and a clipboard, we began what would be a months-long endeavor of helping to salvage people’s homes”.
The letters say Dónal often led from the front, even involving some of his six children, because he wanted them to be aware of “the privilege they had in their lives, and to always be cognizant of, and try to help, those who were less fortunate”.
One letter writer said that following the Haiti earthquake in 2010, Dónal, along with nearly 100 employees and family members from the US and Ireland, traveled to Haiti to help victims of that disaster.
One of Dónal’s daughters, Katie, decided she wanted to be part of the relief effort and her dad went with her while he was recovering from a serious skiing accident. Katie describes it as a “turning point in my life”—ostensibly leading her to study International Peace in college and ultimately volunteering with the Peace Corps in Cambodia, where she serves today.
Dónal’s generosity of time and money is also highlighted in his native Kerry. Maurice FitzGerald wrote that: “Whilst Dónal’s many examples of monetary and financial contributions have been outstanding, his greatest gift of all has been his presence and quality of time supporting the people he cares for.”
Examples are given of him visiting people suffering with personal challenges, of skipping Christmas dinner to help friends rescue their house from a flood, of flying to Ireland to be with a family friend, when each of his parents passed away (Maurice Fitzgerald’s letter).
In terms of Dónal’s commitment to family, including his six children—Jack (28), Dónal Jr. (27), Katie (25), Caroline (23), Mikey (19), and Kelly (16)—his best friend writes that “[h]is children idolize him” and “his whole world revolves around them.” When his first child, Jack, was born, Dónal exclaimed: “The next President of the United States has been born!”
One business colleague observed, when setting up a business meeting, Dónal “went straight to his children’s school calendar before his business calendar”.
Dónal’s sister, Marian, talks of his support from afar, from the moment he arrived in the US, including, in the early years, buying his parents a new car, delivered on Christmas Eve, having borrowed to do so.
His brother Leonard recounted: “They were shocked. My mother said she never felt so proud as she did that night, driving to mass in her new car bought by her son in America who hadn’t forgotten them”.
The letters in support of Helen are equally effusive. One is from a surgeon who treated her for a serious illness and describes her as “shy” “selfless” the “antithesis of a party girl” and someone whose name brought to mind the word “altruism”.
He describes how she took an elderly homeless man who had emigrated from Ireland decades ago under her wing, securing him a job as watchman in a Navillus storage yard, and fixing up somewhere for him to live.
Helen’s brother Kevin wrote about how when this elderly man, Seán Coffey, passed away, she paid for the funeral and brought his ashes back to Ireland, where she paid for a burial plot and erected a headstone.
“Seán didn’t have a dollar when he died which made it even more personal for Helen, to ensure that he would get a proper burial,” Kevin wrote.
He also mentioned the toll the case has taken on his sister and how “scared” she is that she may not see her elderly mother again. Whether she will or not hinges on the sentence that the court hands down today.