Like other big-city unions, ironworkers' Local 401 in Philadephia found its once-unchallenged hold on the city and its suburbs compromised as nonunion contractors increased their market share.In response, say federal prosecutors, the local's leaders carried out, over many years, a program of intimidation that stands out for its violence and audacity. According to a grand jury indictment opened in Philadelphia last week, business manager and local leader Joseph Dougherty and nine other officers and members regularly employed violence and threats to extort contractors, limit nonunion work and even keep union carpenters from performing work the local believed it should control.In a
An AECOM executive makes a presentation to win a construction management contract for sewer repairs in Miami-Dade County, as shown in in documents provided by rival CH2M Hill's attorney. The $1.6-billion Miami-Dade county sewer repair project has produced a steady flow of controversy as Florida public officials changed the rules for competitors for the prime contract, and the two finalists clashed over the accuracy of their stated qualifications.Where the sales work by the finalists ends, and unethical misrepresentation begins, is hard to tell at this point. Some of it concerns simple math that ought to be easy to agree on.After
A portion of the newsletter sent out by Steven Golia with the message about Scarborough bonds that was later retracted. Related Links: A Bold Individual Surety Claims Coal-Backed Bonds are Rock Solid Two days before Christmas, Arthur J. Gallagher & Co., the world's fourth-biggest insurance broker, announced one of the last of its 31 mergers and acquisitions of 2013: McIntyre Risk Management, a brokerage in Cherry Hill, N.J.Some time during December—whether it was before or after the acquisition isn't known—McIntyre apparently hired a key player in the world of individual surety, Steven Golia. He had been president of Charlottesville, Va.-based
Photo by AP/Wideworld Environmental groups claim Winter Olympic construction companies are inappropriately disposing waste around Sochi, despite Vladimir Putin's 'zero-waste' pledge to win the games. Related Links: Anti-Corruption Activist's Home Searched in Alleged Graft Case Sochi, a remote city on Russia's Black Sea coast, required a new highway and railroad to serve hundreds of thousands of guests for the 2014 Winter Olympics. These two projects alone cost as much as the entire construction budget of the 2010 Vancouver games, say event observers and activists."We compared the highway to similar projects in the developed world and found it to be 1.9
Related Links: Indictment Charging Document Atlanta Constitution: DeKalb School Exec Pope Gave Architecture Firms the Ax A state judge sentenced the former chief operating officer of the DeKalb County, Ga., school district and her ex-husband, an architect, for a scheme in which they steered district design work to his firm.County Superior Court Judge Cynthia Becker sentenced Patricia Reid and Tony Pope on Dec. 9, but more interesting than the sentences are how the husband-and-wife team worked together yet still believed they worked within the law or had concealed any violations. Becker sentenced Reid to 15 years in prison for steering district
Related Links: AIA Contract Documents References to 'Cost of Work' Robert E. Crawford, owner of a Springdale, Pa., construction company, is set to be sentenced on Dec. 13 in federal district court in Pittsburgh, after pleading guilty last summer to mail fraud in a kickback scheme with a developer financed though overbilling so-called "cost of work" charges on two building projects worth $15 million.U.S. District Court Judge David Cercone has also set for next March 3 the sentencing for the developer, Mark M. Palombaro, former vice president of development for Indianapolis-based Simon Property Group.Palombaro pleaded guilty on Nov. 3 to
In a coast-to-coast internet-and-telephone crime spree, alleged forgers who had websites that made them appear to be individual sureties have spread fake Chubb completion bonds across the U.S.
The Ohio Ethics Commission recently reprimanded the former Trumbull County Engineer for violations related to his tenure as engineer.David DeChristofaro, who left office nearly two years ago and is self-employed as a civil engineer, approved a settlement agreement in which he is reprimanded for being involved as county engineer with matters related to a lawsuit between the county and BECDIR, a firm owned by a business partner with whom he shares joint ventures in oil and gas wells in West Virginia.DeChristofaro, who in addition to being an engineer has a PhD in public administration, won election to the job of
Photo by Jeffrey Cox/ENR Diamond Indemnity provided a surety bond to a subcontractor on a renovation and expansion project in 2012 at the New-York Historical Society. Former business partners of Melde Rutledge, the elusive source of surety bonds linked with his partners to controversial practices, claim that their association with him ended in the summer of 2012. At that time, they claim, Rutledge allegedly engaged in fraudulent bonding activity and forged the signature on bond documents of Diamond Indemnity Trust principal Darius X. Johnson.Rutledge, believed to be a resident of West Palm Peach, Fla., and his attorney could not be