Mob connected contractor bilks $1.5 million from One WTC construction
A mobbed-up World Trade Center contractor bilked the Port Authority out of $1.5 million, money he used to renovate his daughter's house, Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn said Tuesday.
The contractor, Vincent Vertuccio, 60, of the Maspeth section of Queens, NY, hid his association with a company he controlled so it could win an $11.4 million contract with the Port Authority for work on the 1 World Trade Center tower, said the U.S. Attorney for the Easter District of New York, Loretta Lynch. Lynch's office said Vertuccio has ties to organized crime, which would have disqualified the company, Crimson Construction Corporation, from the trade center contract.
Vertuccio later deposited much of the $1.5 million he was initially paid under the contract into a bank account belonging to his mother, and then used that money on his daughter's house, Lynch's office said.
Lynch said Vertuccio also faces related tax fraud and money laundering charges with two co-defendants: his lawyer, John Servider, 53, of Patterson, NY; and a Crimson accountant, Praful Pandya, 68, of Queens. Lynch, who has been nominated by President Obama to the U.S. attorney general's post, said Vertuccio submitted fraudulent individual tax returns for the years 2008 and 2011.
Vertuccio and Pandya could not be reached. Servider did not return a call to his Queens law office.
Crimson was fired by the Port Authority when it failed to do the work it was paid for, said Lynch's office, which on Tuesday unsealed a 10-count indictment returned by a federal grand jury on April 8. The Port Authority Inspector General's office took part in the case.
"Today serves as an unfortunate reminder that, as alleged in the indictment, organized crime continues to plague the region's construction industry," Michael Nestor, the inspector general, said in a statement.
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2015/04/wtc_contractor_wth_mob_ties_bilked_port_authority.html
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