Summary

Paul and Bonnie Tendrup, owners of Tenson Construction, Inc., a firm specializing in asphalt and concrete highway construction., pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis, MN, to conspiracy charges for cheating their employees out of at least $160,000 in overtime pay on Federal-aid contracts. Tenson Construction is a Minnesota-based firm having federal-aid highway contracts in Iowa, Minnesota, Texas, and Wisconsin. An audit of seven Tenson contracts by the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MNDOT) determined that Tenson had failed to pay its employees the required prevailing wages. A subsequent OIG investigation found the Tendrup’s had been scheming to convert their employees overtime to regular work hours. The case was a joint investigation of OIG, the FBI, and MNDOT.