The principal of a Bristol Township-based construction company plead guilty to taking part in a kickback scheme on Monday.
Leonard Santos, 67, of Yardley, plead guilty to charges of fraud and aggravated assault in New Jersey, according to the Associated Press. Santos was a principal at Sands Mechanical Inc.
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Sands employees Alex Rabinovich, 58, of Richboro; Richard Cottone, 39; and Michael Featherston, 44, have already plead guilty in the case.
Federal officials began their investigation into the company after they were tipped off that Sands employees were not being paid the prevailing wage for a project at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in Burlington County, N.J. The men charged were accused of organizing a scheme in which their workers were forced to kick back wages. Santos and Rabinovich routinely submitted inaccurate weekly payroll forms that are required whenever the federal government subsidizes a construction project, according to an indictment filed last year.
According to court filings, Santos, Cottone and others targeted a general contractor’s site manager who noted deficiencies in the work of Sands’ employees. The site manager’s truck was set on fire outside of his house in May 2010. When that did not work, the conspirators had a vehicle driven by Cottone’s nephew and two friends run down the manager as he rode his bike in June 2010. The manager suffered injuries from being struck.
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Sands was performing work to rehab the base’s Marine Corps Reserve Training Center between November 2009 and September 2010.
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