Brooklyn Feds Settle for $40M

 

CADMAN PLAZA EAST (AP) — A Brooklyn federal prosecutor has announced criminal charges and a $40.5 million settlement related to an investigation of Lend Lease U.S. Construction, a division of an international construction company.

 

Court papers in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, which sits in Downtown Brooklyn, show the company was accused of defrauding federal, state and local government contracting agencies by falsely billing them from 1999 to 2009. The government also criminally charged one company executive.

 

A phone message left at a company office in New York wasn't immediately returned.

 

The company was formerly named Bovis Lend Lease. It changed its name after a fatal fire during its demolition of the former Deutsche Bank building in lower Manhattan. Two firefighters, including one from Brooklyn, died.

 

Its other New York City projects included Citifield, home of baseball's Mets, and the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum at the World Trade Center.