PROVIDENCE — The operator of Falcon Maintenance LLC, one of two state contractors whose employees were arrested during a July federal immigration raid at six Rhode Island courthouses, has tentatively agreed to plead guilty to a criminal misdemeanor charge of knowingly hiring undocumented workers.

If convicted, Vincent D’Elia Jr., of Johnston, could face up to six months in prison, and a $3,000 fine “for each unauthorized alien for which a violation occurred.”

The plea agreement will not become formal until a hearing in U.S. District Court, said Thomas Connell, spokesman for U.S. Attorney Robert Clark Corrente. The hearing has not yet been scheduled. Until then, D’Elia is presumed innocent. Thomas G. Briody, who represents D’Elia, declined comment.

Connell said the one-count information charge “is an outgrowth” of the courthouse raids during which 31 suspected illegal immigrants were arrested, and is based “on an investigation of Mr. D’Elia’s hiring practices.” He declined to say whether the charge applies strictly to the courthouse workers, or involves other Falcon employees hired to fulfill 24 contracts the company held until the Carcieri administration canceled them on July 25. According to state documents, Sovereign Bank is, or was, among Falcon’s private clients.

Connell also declined to speculate whether similar charges will be brought against TriState Enterprises of North Providence, the other company whose workers were arrested during the raids, but added, “I can tell you that the prosecutor and the agents in charge are still at work.”

TriState and Falcon collectively held cleaning contracts for more than four dozen buildings across state government. The Rhode Island Judiciary maintains three contracts with Falcon, at the Murray Judicial Complex in Newport; the Rhode Island Traffic Tribunal in Cranston, and the Fogarty Judicial Building in Providence, said spokesman Craig N. Berke.

“We are aware of the plea agreement involving the owner of Falcon Maintenance and we are examining our contractual obligations with respect to the three contracts the Judiciary still has with that company,” Berke said. He reserved further comment.

Corrente announced yesterday that his office had charged D’Elia with “engaging in a pattern and practice of hiring aliens for employment with Falcon Maintenance, knowing that those aliens were not authorized for employment in the United States,” for at least 5½ years.

The plea agreement requires D’Elia to admit that he failed to accurately withhold and pay federal insurance contributions from the illegal workers’ wages, and failed to remit Social Security taxes. D’Elia will also be required to cooperate with the IRS “in the accounting and collection of his outstanding tax liability.”

Connell said, “We cannot speculate at this point as to the number of aliens that are the subject of violations; that would be a factor in sentencing and would be calculated at some point during the judicial process, if we get to that stage.” He said the amount of his [D’Elia’s] potential tax liability “would be calculated by IRS down the road.”

In exchange, the government has agreed not to prosecute D’Elia “for willful evasion of FICA taxes related to his failure to accurately and truthfully withhold and pay over FICA taxes for the period Jan. 1, 2004, through July 15, 2008, from the pay of illegal aliens he employed at Falcon Maintenance Co.”

In documents Falcon filed with the state when he bid to get the contracts, D’Elia provided worksheets detailing the amount each employee would cost in wages, payroll taxes and workers’ compensation insurance.

State corporation documents list Falcon Maintenance at D’Elia’s home address at 160 Winsor Ave. in Johnston, where state and federal authorities executed a search warrant in July.

But several weeks after the raids, The Journal located a one-room Falcon office at 925 Plainfield St. in Johnston, which corporation documents list as the address of Tiger Soap and Tiger Manufacturing. Behind a door labeled “Falcon,” a man who declined to identify himself said he was accepting job applications for that company. Containers of Tiger Soap and cleaning equipment crowded a tiny hallway.

A joint federal-state investigation was already under way when the 31 janitors — 15 men and 16 women from Honduras, Guatemala, Brazil and Mexico — were arrested during simultaneous raids at 5 p.m. on July 15. Many of them were just starting their evening shifts.

They were detained on civil immigration charges (what ICE refers to as “administrative” charges). Four of the workers were subsequently charged with criminal identity theft. Four of the people charged administratively have agreed to go home voluntarily by early January; the other cases are in various stages at federal immigration court in Boston. Some of those pending cases include pleas for asylum.

After the raids, several of the workers who were released on humanitarian grounds told The Journal that they obtained their jobs at Falcon Maintenance and TriState Enterprises through friends, who handled all their paperwork. Two workers, Lucy Contreras and Gustavo Cabrera, said their paychecks reflected no benefits, no insurance, and no tax withholdings.

Julie L. Myers, assistant secretary for Homeland Security, ICE, recently said work-site enforcement actions “target a key component of the illicit support structure that enables illegal immigration to flourish. No employer, regardless of industry or location, is immune from complying with the nation’s laws. ICE and our law enforcement partners will continue to bring all of our authorities to bear in this fight using criminal charges, asset seizures, administrative arrests and deportations.”

The case was investigated by ICE and the Internal Revenue Service criminal investigation division.

With reports from staff writers Tracy Breton and Katherine Gregg

kziner@projo.com