Long Island?s Hispanic community is expressing outrage after the sentence of a man convicted of beating two day laborers was nearly cut in half.

Ryan Wagner, 25, of Maspeth was convicted along with 33-year-old Christopher Slavin in 2002 of posing as contractors and luring two day laborers to an abandoned warehouse in Shirley. There, the pair beat and slashed 24-year-old Israel Perez and 33-year-old Magdaleno Estrada within inches of their lives. Both were sentenced to 25 years in prison for the attacks, but a state appeals court reduced Wagner?s sentence to 15 years Tuesday.

Reverend Allan Ramirez, pastor of the Brookville Reformed Church, spoke on behalf of Perez. Ramirez says Perez is frightened for himself and for other immigrants that people who would attack his kind are not being sentenced for a long period. Perez says day laborers are only looking for better lives for their families and do not want to bother anyone.