Summary

On June 20, Minnesota Valley Landscape, Inc. (MVL) and its President, David Allyn Lindstrom, were sentenced in U.S. District Court in St Paul, MN for conspiracy to defraud the Federal Highway Administration on federally-funded highway construction projects. Lindstrom was ordered to serve 18 months in prison, followed by 3 years supervised release and was fined $4,000; MVL was sentenced to 5 years probation; and both MVL and Lindstrom were ordered to pay $396,257 in restitution. Lindstrom and MVL pled guilty in June 2005 to the felony charge.

MVL is the largest highway landscaping company in Minnesota, and was the prime contractor on $4.4 million in such contracts between 1996 and 2002, as well as subcontractor on numerous others. Our investigation found that during that time, MVL invoiced for and was paid $396,257 through the federally-funded contracts for work either billed at other than the prevailing wage rates or for overtime charged, but for which the MVL employees were not paid. In June 2005, MVL and Lindstrom were debarred by the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MN-DOT) for three years. The investigation was conducted jointly with the FBI, with assistance from the MN-DOT.