Contractor for 1 World Trade Center Is Charged With Fraud
The owner of a construction company hired to do extensive steel work on 1 World Trade Center was charged on Thursday with fraudulently obtaining $76 million by falsely claiming he was in compliance with requirements for hiring minority and female subcontractors.
The owner, Larry Davis, 63, was accused of using bogus work orders and business records to make it seem as if his company, DCM Erectors Inc., was in compliance with hiring requirements of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. He was charged with wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud, each of which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.
On Thursday evening, a prosecutor for the United States attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York, Carrie H. Cohen, told a judge in United States District Court in Manhattan that the authorities believed Mr. Davis had carried out similar schemes involving other construction projects.
“The government intends to indict the defendant with additional charges,” she told Magistrate Judge Debra Freeman. “The indictment the government would seek would include other frauds on other buildings that are part of public projects.”
Mr. Davis’s lawyer, Sanford Talkin, told Judge Freeman that his client denied the charges against him. Mr. Davis was released on Thursday on $100,000 bond.
DCM Erectors was awarded two Port Authority contracts totaling about $600 million to do drafting, engineering and structural steel work on the 1,776-foot office tower at 1 World Trade Center, as well as on the PATH transit hub below the tower. Over time, prosecutors said, those contracts swelled to nearly $1 billion. . . .
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/01/nyregion/contractor-for-1-world-trade-center-is-charged-with-fraud.html?_r=1
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