Harrison trash hauler Ralph Mancini pleads guilty to $800,000 billing scam

Harrison trash hauler Ralph Mancini has pleaded guilty to mail fraud in federal court for bilking customers out of more than $800,000.

Mancini, 57, admitted in a Nov. 13 change-of-plea hearing that he overbilled 17 customers from 2008 to 2016, according to a news release from U.S. District Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman.

Berman said invoices fabricated the tonnage of the collected waste and thereby charged customers for collection and dumping services that had not been performed, as owner and operator of County Waste Management.

Berman did not identify the victims, but said they included educational institutions, department stores and grocery stores.

Mancini formed County Waste Management in 2000. The trash hauling company serves Westchester and Putnam counties in New York and Fairfield County in Connecticut. It is based in his house in Harrison, and the trucks are kept at a used car lot in Bedford Hills.

Mancini is scheduled to be sentenced Feb. 14 by U.S. District Judge Nelson S. Roman.

Berman praised the FBI investigative work and cited assistance from the Westchester County Department of Public Safety and the Westchester County Solid Waste Commission.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Loss is handling the prosecution. Mancini is represented by White Plains attorneys Marc S. Oxman and Kerry A. Lawrence.