Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg unveiled on Tuesday the indictment of eight people and six companies in what he called a wide-ranging construction industry fraud scheme.
This announcement comes on the second day of National Construction Safety Week and highlights the plight many construction workers have befallen due to corruption where their well-being is disregarded and compensation for injuries are swept under the rug. According to the DA’s office, the indictment charges JM3 Construction LLC, a large non-union drywall and carpentry company, with its principal executives Lawrence Wecker, 82, Michael Speier, 46, Joseph Guinta, 57, Lisa Rossi, 52, and Marcos Pinheiro, 65, (in addition to their companies) with enterprise corruption.
Bragg’s office found these unscrupulous construction executives and subcontractors had conspired to use minority and women-owned businesses to obtain affordable housing development contracts, and during their scheme they allegedly engaged in payroll and insurance fraud, and other forms of corruption. Bragg asserts that their criminal acts affected numerous affordable housing projects as well as placed construction workers at risk for the sake of greed.
“The common factor in all of these alleged schemes is greed at all costs,” said District Attorney Bragg.
It was this level of disregard for construction workers and an insatiable greed that triggered a red flag for investigators when they noticed suspicious check-cashing activities. According to the Manhattan DA’s Office’s Rackets Bureau, these check-cashing activities were observed during a separate investigation into individuals who received bribes for Minority and Women-Owned Business Enterprises (M/WBE) fraud schemes.
These individuals now face 60 criminal charge counts, which include conspiracy, insurance fraud, grand larceny, money laundering, falsifying business records, commercial bribing, scheme to defraud and offering a false instrument for filing.
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