P.A. Landers, Inc., a "Big Dig" road construction contractor based on the South Shore of Boston, agreed today to pay a fine of $900 million fine in order to settle federal civil charges that it had defrauded the government for violations under the False Claims Act. According to the government complaint, from 1995 through at least 2003, "employees of the company generated fake and inflated weight slips for truck loads of asphalt." The complaint specifically named Preston A. "Skip" Landers for his role in ordering the falsification. Landers and associate, Gregory R. Keelan, each were found guilty in May 2007 to separate criminal charges that they conspired to defraud the Commonwealth, several municipalities and mail fraud. Landers was sentenced to 42 months in prison and ordered to pay a fine of $15,000. Keelan was sentenced to 30 months in prison and ordered to pay a fine fo $10,000. The company was separately ordered to pay a $3 million fine in the criminal case.Read the DOJ release here.
Read the background story here, here and here.
I can tell you that whenever an infrastructure project gets as large, bloated and over budget as the Big Dig, there is certain to be fraud involved. OK, there is always fraud involved in construction projects. It's just a matter of magnitude.
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