Summary

On November 4, 2011, Carmine Desio, vice president of Environmental Energy Associates (EEA), was sentenced in U.S. District Court, Manhattan, New York, for his role in a scheme in which he defrauded legitimate disadvantaged business enterprises (DBE) from acquiring construction contract work.  Mr. Desio was sentenced to six months home confinement with electronic monitoring, two years of supervised release, a $50,000 fine, and $188,000 criminal restitution that is payable jointly with co-defendant Balu Kamat. 

Beginning in approximately 1997, Mr. Desio and Mr. Kamat caused EEA to enter into public contracts to perform an array of subcontract work knowing that they lacked the labor, equipment, and financial capability to perform the work.  As part of the scheme, they agreed to put employees of a specific general contractor on EEA certified payrolls.  This scheme occurred on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), New York City Transit Authority's Fulton Street Transit Center -Dey Street Concourse, with a total DBE subcontract value of $ 5.2 million. 

The investigation is being conducted jointly with the MTA - Office of Inspector General, the U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Labor Racketeering and Fraud Investigations, and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey - Office of Inspector General.