Summary

On March 7, Thomas Costa, president of Costa Construction Corp., Deer Park, New York, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Central Islip, New York, to a charge of money laundering conspiracy related to the repaving of a road project in New York City. Between 2002 and 2003, Costa's company was a subcontractor on a $16 million roadway milling contract for the New York City Department of Transportation. Milling is the process where a contractor grinds off the top layer of asphalt from the existing roadway surface before repaving. Costa participated in a scheme to bribe the inspector overseeing the project. In exchange for accepting these bribes, the inspector submitted false inspection reports resulting in the contractors being overpaid approximately $1 million for truckloads of material that were never removed from the work sites. Sentencing of Costa is tentatively scheduled for June 8. This case was investigated by OIG and other members of the Long Island Construction Fraud Task Force.