Two U.S. Corps of Engineers officials and two other men were arrested on Oct. 4 and charged with conspiracy, bribery, kickbacks and money laundering on two Corps contracts, the Justice Dept. says. U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Ronald C. Machen Jr. said, “This indictment alleges one of the most brazen corruption schemes in the history of federal contracting.”The case involves an indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract with a $1-billion-plus maximum value and a planned contract with a $780-million cap.Neither was competitively bid.The indictment, returned by a grand jury on Sept. 16 in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., and unsealed on
Related Links: Weighing the Merits of Lomma's Case Criminal prosecution of the owner of a tower crane whose collapse led to the deaths of two New York City construction workers in a 2008 accident will proceed next month. On Sept. 19, a state Supreme Court judge rejected a motion to dismiss negligent homicide charges against James F. Lomma, his former head mechanic and two firms the owner controlled.Paul Schechtman, attorney for Lomma, says he has made “no final decision” on whether to request a judge or jury trial, but sources close to the case say a jury trial is more
Related Links: Dept. of Justice press release Two Army Corps of Engineers contracting officials and two other men were arrested and charged with conspiracy, bribery, kickbacks and money laundering on two Corps contracts.The U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Ronald C. Machen, Jr., said, “This indictment alleges one of the most brazen corruption schemes in the history of federal contracting.”Two Corps contracts are at issue in the case: An indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract with a maximum value of more than $1 billion and a planned contract that was to have a maximum value of $780 million. Neither was competitively
Photo by Tudor Van Hampton for ENR Trial of crane owner Lomma is set to begin in Manhattan on Nov. 7. AP Wideworld Crane accident killed two union workers in Manhattan in 2008; the rigger of a collapsed crane on another city site was acquitted of criminal charges. Related Links: NYC Contractors Face Manslaughter Charges in Safety Cases Crane-Failure Case Heading To Court Rapetti Speaks: They Made Me Out To Be a Murderer Criminal prosecution of the owner of a collapsed tower crane that killed two New York City construction workers in a 2008 accident will proceed next month, according
A woman who falsified asbestos abatement worker certifications for thousands of undocumented workers in New England between 2001 and 2007 was sentenced Sept. 13 in U.S. District Court in Boston to more than seven years in prison.Judge Nathaniel Gorton also ordered Albania Deleon, 41, to pay $1.2 million in back taxes and $369,015 in restitution to AIM Mutual Insurance Co., Burlington, Mass. She owned and operated what had been New England's largest certified asbestos abatement school, Environmental Compliance Training in Methuen, Mass., which issued at least 2,500 certifications to people who had not taken required training courses. DELEONAccording to published
Courtesy of Bengladesh Bridge Authority Padma Bridge, at center of alleged bidding scandal, would be the largest bridge in southeast Asia when completed in 2014. Canada’s national police force is continuing its probe into alleged corrupt bidding practices by employees of SNC- Lavalin, Montreal, in connection with the $2.9-billion Padma Bridge project in Bangladesh.Acting on a referral by the World Bank, which is believed to be providing $1.2 billion of the project funding, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) executed search warrants at the company's offices in September. A police spokesman confirms the investigation but won't disclose why it was
Joint-venture contractors on the 12.3-mile Hiawatha light-rail line in Minneapolis-St. Paul have agreed to pay $4.6 million to settle federal charges that they fraudulently reported use of disadvantaged business enterprises (DBEs) on the $715-million project, completed in 2004. Parsons Transportation Group, part of the project's design JV, says it was mistakenly named as a pact participant in the Justice Dept.'s Aug. 24 announcement. The firm and other designers were not targets of the government subcontracting probe nor did they “review or approve” DBE activities, a spokeswoman says. Justice did not return calls for comment.Project JV contractor Minnesota Transit Constructors Inc.
A Fluor Corp. subsidiary will pay $4 million to settle allegations that workers filed false claims and received kickbacks related to the company’s contract at the Dept. of Energy’s Hanford nuclear site in Washington state, the Justice Dept. said. Related Links: Justice Dept. press release In announcing the settlement on June 17, the department said that from 2003 to 2008, three Fluor Hanford Inc. material coordinators “made hundreds of fraudulent purchases using government purchase cards, using their positions and exploiting weaknesses in Fluor’s internal control system to funnel DOE funds to themselves.”Fluor spokesman Keith Stephens says, “Fluor settled with the
Legal PHOTO BY TOM SAWYER FOR ENR BLACKOUT The site of a fatal 2007 fire, the Deutsche Bank was finally demolished in January. After the prosecution wrapped its case on June 1 after nearly two months of argument in the manslaughter trial of three New York City construction managers for a fatal Manhattan building fire in 2007, defense attorneys insisted a reasonable jury could not blame their clients.State Supreme Court Justice Rena K. Uviller conceded the defense raised “very important issues” in its June 2 motion to toss criminal charges against their clients—Jeffrey Melofchik, Mitchel Alvo and Salvatore DePaola and