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DISTRICT ATTORNEY - NEW YORK COUNTY |
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NEWS RELEASE |
Contact:
Alicia Maxey Greene |
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Manhattan District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau announced today the indictment of a Long Island City-based general contracting firm, M. A. ANGELIADES, INC., and its principals for defrauding employees out of $600,000 in unpaid wages and benefits. Three employees, members of Local 731, also were indicted, for related criminal conduct. The defendants, M.A. ANGELIADES, INC., its owner MERKOURIOS ANGELIADES, 67, executive vice-president DIMITRI MALAKIDIS, 56, and vice-president IRENA ANGELIADES, 35, were indicted on various charges, including grand larceny, offering a false instrument for filing, falsifying business records, bribing a labor official and bribing a witness. ANTHONY GRAHAM, 47, HAROLD JOHNSON, 46, and EDUARDO VISONE, 32, were each indicted for falsifying business records. GRAHAM was additionally indicted for bribe receiving by a labor official. The crimes charged in the indictment occurred between January 1, 2005 and December 31, 2007. The investigation leading to today’s indictment revealed that M.A. ANGELIADES, Inc. (ANGELIADES) is a general contracting firm that specializes in large public works contracts. The criminal conduct outlined in this indictment involves four contracts entered into with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority/New York City Transit Authority (MTA) whereby ANGELIADES was the general contractor providing labor in the rehabilitation of 11 subway stations throughout New York City. As provided by the New York State Labor Law, and under the terms of these contracts, ANGELIADES was required to pay all of the employees engaged in working on these contracts the prevailing wage and supplemental benefit rate. The Office of the Inspector General for the MTA began investigating ANGELIADES after receiving a number of complaints that the firm was not paying their employees the required prevailing wage rate for overtime and weekend work. The initial investigation provided the District Attorney's Office with probable cause to obtain and execute search warrants at various ANGELIADES offices in May of 2008. Further investigation revealed that, rather than pay their employees the lawful prevailing wage and supplemental benefit rate for overtime and weekend work, ANGELIADES would pay each worker $20 per hour. Taking into account just the weekend work performed by the employees, each contract had an underpayment exceeding $50,000 with a combined underpayment in excess of $600,000. The defendants took a number of criminal steps to hide these underpayments from the MTA. These included creating falsified payroll reports which omitted overtime and weekend hours of employees while keeping a separate overtime pay sheet for the omitted hours; providing each affected employee on pay day with both a regular straight time paycheck and a cash envelope for overtime and weekend work; using the falsified payroll reports to supply false information to the various taxing authorities and benefit funds; and submitting falsified payment reports to the MTA to obtain compensation on each contract. These payment applications included sworn affidavits by MERKOURIOS ANGELIADES and DIMITRI MALAKIDIS attesting that they were paying the required prevailing wages and benefits to their employees. Evidence further disclosed that MERKOURIOS ANGELIADES was paying an ongoing cash bribe to shop steward ANTHONY GRAHAM, in exchange for which GRAHAM would falsify his shop steward reports by failing to report the overtime and weekend hours worked by the employees and failing to act upon complaints made by them. Two other shop stewards, HAROLD JOHNSON and EDUARDO VISONE, likewise falsified their shop steward reports by failing to report overtime and weekend hours worked by the employees and failed to act on complaints filed with them. Additionally, MERKOURIOS ANGELIADES offered a cash bribe to a witness to induce him not to cooperate with the investigation and to return any documents and records he had in his possession. The indictment charges M.A. ANGELIADES, INC. and MERKOURIOS ANGELIADES with four counts of Grand Larceny in the Second Degree, 44 counts of Offering a False Instrument for Filing in the First Degree, two counts of Falsifying Business Records in the First Degree, one count of Bribing a Labor Official, one count of Bribing a Witness and one count of Attempted Tampering with Physical Evidence. IRENA ANGELIADES was indicted on four counts of Grand Larceny in the Second Degree, 44 counts of Offering a False Instrument in the First Degree and two counts of Falsifying Business Records in the First Degree. DIMITRI MALAKIDIS was indicted on four counts of Grand Larceny in the Second Degree and 21 counts of the Offering a False Instrument for Filing in the First Degree. ANTHONY GRAHAM was indicted on one count of Bribe Receiving by a Labor Official and 16 counts of Falsifying Business Records in the First Degree. HAROLD JOHNSON was indicted on 14 counts of Falsifying Business Records in the First Degree. EDUARDO VISONE was indicted on 10 counts of Falsifying Business Records in the First Degree. Grand Larceny in the Second Degree is a class C felony punishable by up to 5 to 15 years in prison; Offering a False Instrument for Filing is a class E felony punishable by up to 1⅓ to 4 years in prison; Falsifying Business Records in the First Degree is a class E felony; Bribing a Labor Official is a class D felony punishable by up to 2⅓ to 7 years in prison; Bribing a Witness is a class D felony; and Attempted Tampering of Physical Evidence is a class A misdemeanor punishable by up to1 year in prison. The defendants, excluding GRAHAM and IRENA ANGELIADES, were arrested this morning and are scheduled to be arraigned in State Supreme Court, Part 1. The investigation is continuing. Mr. Morgenthau thanked Barry L. Kluger, Inspector General of the MTA, for the assistance of his investigative staff, including Special Investigative Counsel Clifford Brock and Chief of Forensic Investigations Mark Chersevani. Mr. Morgenthau also thanked the New York State Police for their assistance in the investigation, including Superintendent Harry J. Corbitt, Special Investigation Unit Major Matthew S. Renneman, Lieutenant George Nohai and Lead Investigator Neil Anderson, who was supervised by Senior Investigator Gustav Talleur. Assistant District Attorney Christopher Beard, of the Labor Racketeering Unit, is handling the prosecution under the supervision of Assistant District Attorney Michael Scotto, Chief of the Labor Racketeering Unit. Defendants' Information: MERKOURIOS ANGELIADES, 11/21/1941 IRENA ANGELIADES, 9/6/1973 DIMIRI MALAKIDIS, 8/20/1952 ANTHONY GRAHAM, 4/14/1962 HAROLD JOHNSON, 5/02/1963 EDUARDO VISONE, 11/15/1976 ###
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