An Ossining company, its owner and several employees have been charged with racketeering and other crimes for allegedly defrauding state and private clients in connection with construction material testing at more than 100 projects in metropolitan New York, including one in Westchester.
The projects include such prominent ones as Freedom Tower at the World Trade Center site, the new Yankee Stadium in the Bronx and the city”™s Second Avenue Subway line, in addition to an airport cargo facility, courthouses, libraries, museums, a fire station, apartment buildings, hospitals and university facilities. The fraudulent practices allegedly occurred too at a track improvement project at the New Rochelle Metro-North Railroad station.
Seven executives and engineers at Testwell Laboratories Inc. late last month were indicted by a Manhattan grand jury on charges of enterprise corruption, grand larceny, scheme to defraud, offering false instruments for filing and falsification of business records. Five other employees face separate criminal charges for their alleged roles.
A state Supreme Court judge in Manhattan issued a restraining order freezing $100 million in assets of the defendants as Manhattan District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau seeks to recover $110 million in allegedly criminal proceeds. Â Â
Morgenthau”™s office said the investigation began in March when the district attorney was told by both Port Authority of New York New Jersey and New York Yankees officials that Testwell was improperly performing material tests at the Freedom Tower and at the new ballpark.
One of the largest construction material testing companies in the metropolitan area, Testwell is headquartered at 47 Hudson St. in Ossining. The company has some 240 employees and about $20 million in annual revenues, according to the indictment. Testwell was founded in 1997 by V. Reddy Kancharla, its sole owner and a Croton-on-Hudson resident.
As company president and CEO, the 45-year-old Kancharla allegedly joined in a scheme to falsify concrete mix design reports and double-bill, and occasionally triple-bill, customers for steel inspections, some of which were not performed. Other company officials were variously accused of altering field test reports to make it appear that concrete field testing had been done when it had not been, generating false lab reports and falsely certifying that Testwell employees were certified as inspectors.
Employees charged with Kancharla and the corporation in the racketeering scheme were: Vincent Barone, Bedford Hills, vice president; Alfredo Caruso, Hartsdale, lab testing director; Edward Porter, Scarsdale, civil engineer; Michael Sterlacci, Ossining, professional engineer; Stephen Latus, Yorktown Heights, project manager, and Wilfred Sanchez, Bronx, steel and fire code department manager. Employees charged separately for their alleged roles in the scheme were Nancy Phillips, Peekskill; Peter Promushkin, Nanuet; Priti Shah, Wappinger Falls; Clyde Finklea, Columbia, S.C., and L. Tommy Dowd, Lexington, S.C. Â
Martin B. Adelman, a Manhattan attorney representing Treadwell Laboratories, last week said defendants are seeking to have a judge release assets to cover their legal costs. “The company is very disappointed that the D.A. obtained an indictment against it,” he said. “It intends to defend with full vigor and looks forward to exoneration and restoration of its reputation.”
