Michael Campana, an Eastchester resident who once made more than $400,000 a year as a construction executive, has been sentenced to two years in federal prison for taking an extra $429,000 for his part in a $5.1 million bribery-kickback scheme.
Campana”™s attorney depicted him as an otherwise decent man who “temporarily lost his way,” in a sentencing letter to the court, while prosecutors attributed his conduct to “pure avarice.”
Campana pleaded guilty last November to tax evasion. U.S. District Judge Denise L. Cote also sentenced him July 27 in Manhattan federal court to three years of supervised release and ordered him to pay the IRS $155,000 for the taxes he evaded.
His crime occurred when he worked as a construction manager from 2014 to 2017 for Bloomberg LLC, the financial services company owned by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
He colluded with more than a dozen officials at Bloomberg, Turner Construction and subcontracting firms working on various projects for his employer. Subcontractors submitted inflated bids for the work and won the contacts, according to court records, in exchange for kickbacks paid to the people who controlled the projects.
Campana received cash ”“ $239,800 was seized from his home ”“ as well as payments for personal services. When he was married in 2017, for example, a subcontractor paid $40,000 to a catering hall in New Jersey, $13,000 to a photography studio and more than $23,000 to a travel agent for his honeymoon.
Campana, 34, was born in Bronxville to an Italian immigrant who worked as a masonry contractor, and to a first generation Italian-American mother who found success as a real estate broker.
He excelled in school and in athletics, according to the sentencing letter by Long Island attorney David S. Smith. He was captain of his high school baseball and football teams, and he went on to graduate with a business degree from Fordham University.
He worked as a superintendent at Turner Construction from 2008 to 2011, then as a project manager in Bloomberg”™s facilities group through 2016. He left that job to work as director of construction for Oxford Properties.
Smith, citing numerous support letters attesting to Campana”™s hard work, talent, professionalism, loyalty, compassion and generosity, argued that his client should be sentenced to no more than 18 months in prison.
He was a role model, according to Smith. One man, for instance, credited Campana with saving his life after he tried to commit suicide.
“He is the only person I felt I could reach out to,” the man explained in a letter to the court, “without the fear of being judged.”
Campana”™s direct boss at Bloomberg “pushed him to accept” the payoffs, according to Smith. “Michael unfortunately surrendered to temptation and agreed to ”¦ receive some of those illicit funds.”
Campana”™s true character “is that of an honorable, loyal and compassionate man,” Smith stated. He deserves leniency and is an “inappropriate candidate to make an example of for the sake of deterring others.”
“The government does not question that Campana is a talented and accomplished person who has helped others,” assistant prosecutors David R. Lewis and Stanley J. Okula Jr. stated in a sentencing memorandum.
Nonetheless, he “chose to steal and defraud and to hide that side” from family, friends and colleagues.
They said Campana earned comfortable salaries” from Turner and Bloomberg, ranging from $100,000 to $270,000 a year. He was still receiving kickbacks on the Bloomberg scheme when he went to work for Oxford at more than $400,000 a year.
“Campana has enjoyed significant financial stability and comfort as a well-educated, talented and successful construction official ”“ an advantage most people can only dream about,” the prosecutors stated. But that wasn”™t enough.
“This was a crime of opportunity driven by avarice and greed, not necessity.”
The prosecutors argued for a sentence of 24 to 30 months, to deter tax evasion by others.
“To be sure, his life has included noteworthy and positive aspects and, unlike many defendants who appear before the court, he enjoys a strong network of family and friends,” they stated. “But we respectfully submit that those factors do not override the need for a meaningful sentence for a defendant who has not fully acknowledged the extent of his wrongdoing.”
Campana also pleaded guilty to a money laundering charge brought by the Manhattan district attorney. Under a plea agreement he will be sentenced to one year to be served at the same time as the federal sentence.
He is scheduled to surrender Sept. 4 to the federal Bureau of Prisons.
