Yonkers Contracting Company Inc., which was originally hired in 2006 to do construction work on Interstate 287, owes the federal government $2.6 million as part of an agreement after illegally exploiting and profiting from the federal Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) Program.
Yonkers Contracting, of 969 Midland Ave. in Yonkers, was originally awarded a $141 million contract, 90 percent of which was covered by the Federal Highway Administration, which is part of the U.S. Department of Transportation.
The federal money was provided because Yonkers Contracting agreed to hire disadvantaged- minority- or women-owned businesses to complete 8.03 percent of the work. Yonkers Contracting said that Global Marine Supply Co., a company with DBE status, would supply steel and complete roughly 31 percent of the work expected by DBE subcontracts for the project.
“Global Marine never stored or shipped any steel, and thus, as Yonkers Contracting knew, performed no commercially useful function on the project,” according to a joint statement from the offices of Preet Bharara, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, the U.S. Department of Transportation Office of Inspector General and the inspector general of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
A third party supplied the steel and Global Marine, which is based in India, copied that supplier”™s invoices with an added 1 percent markup.
Yona Jimenez, of Roslyn and the former president and owner of Global Marine, pleaded guilty in 2013 to mail fraud.
The settlement with Yonkers Contracting was approved earlier this month in U.S. District Court in White Plains. As part of the agreement, Yonkers Contracting admitted to filing false reports with the state Department of Transportation, which disbursed funding through the federally regulated DBE program. Also as part of the settlement, Yonkers Contracting will not be criminally charged in regard to this case.
