A New York contractor was unknowingly uninsured as it worked on 14 Manhattan projects over four years because its insurance broker was pocketing its payments, according to an indictment.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg says Scott Kirtland, a White Plains, NY insurance broker, allegedly stole nearly $350,000 in insurance premium payments from a client, Real Dependable Contracting Corp., a Brooklyn, N.Y., roofing and facade contractor. Kirtland is charged with grand larceny, scheme to defraud, offering a false instrument and falsifying business records.

Kirtland obtained general liability and excess liability insurance policies totaling $96,702 for the firm in June 2016, according to the indictment, but he is accused of making only partial payments and embezzling the rest.

In March 2017, authorities say Kirtland received notices that the policies were canceled over nonpayment but never alerted the contractor or provided it with a refunded portion of the money. Instead, he continued to accept more than $300,000 in payments over the next three years.

“Any accident or injury would have left Kirtland’s client liable without the support of insurance, which could have had potentially devastating consequences,” Bragg said in a statement.

Kirtland allegedly used the firm's money for office rent payments, home maintenance fees, credit card payments, loans, meals at restaurants and cash withdrawals, according to the indictment. 

To keep the contractor from discovering the theft, Kirtland, who owned and operated a brokerage company called Stirling Insurance Services, gave it phony certificates of liability insurance, including four that were filed with the New York City Dept. of Buildings, according to the indictment. The contractor was issued 24 work permits on 14 projects, including buildings between June 2017 and June 2020, with those fake certificates. 

In 2020, when an insurance consulting company began an audit of the contractor's insurance policies, authorities say Kirtland forged documents to show it did still have the policies, the indictment states. The audit revealed the fraud anyway, and the consultant reported it to the district attorney’s office.

Further investigation revealed that Kirtland allegedly stole insurance premium funds from at least three other clients, including two other building contractors, according to the indictment.

Kirtland could not immediately be reached for comment. It wasn't clear whether he had retained a lawyer.