Manhattan, NY – A construction manager at Touro College was busted today in a bid-rigging scheme after allegedly getting caught on tape telling a crooked contractor that the FBI wasn’t “interested” in the multi-million dollar fraud.
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“But you know, the more I’m thinking about it, like, the situation that we did with this, well first of all it’s a private institution. It’s non-public….They’re not interested in this (unintelligible) s–t. They’re interested in you know, federal offenses and s–t like that,” Lawrence Pesce allegedly said.
Moments later, after allegedly pocketing an envelope stuffed with $10,000 in cash inside a New Jersey diner, Pesce cracked himself up, saying: “Oh boy, we couldn’t be any more obvious than that,” according to court papers.
Pesce was charged with wire fraud for allegedly cheating his employer out of $2 million-plus by helping the unidentified contractor win a $10.9 million deal for a construction project at the Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine building on West 125th Street in Manhattan.
According to a Manhattan federal court complaint, Pesce instructed the contractor to jack up his planned $9.1 million bid because he knew the college was expecting to pay about $12 million for the work.
The two then conspired to have other companies submit higher “dummy bids” so the contractor — who is cooperating with the feds — would win the deal, the complaint says.
Pesce also allegedly helped the contractor submit artificially inflated “change orders” that pushed the total price of the project past $12.4 million.
In exchange, he got more than $750,000 in cash and checks, along with $350,000 toward the purchase of property in Wantagh, Long Island, the complaint says.
Pesce was also allegedly slated to receive title to four housing units at a Wappinger Falls development as part of a phony sale worth more than $1 million, but that deal didn’t close before his arrest.
so what ….
this sort of stuff is going on all the time.
look at anyone doing management or building of real estate.
they all take some cream in cash or in fixing their homes…
look at your neighbor who is in it.
thank g-d that My dear friend Dr. Bernard Lander A”H did not have to hear and see this happen, for all the hard work he put into building Touro College and making it into the institution it is today.
omg i know him
Why wire fraud? was the money wired to him or is everything just bunched into this elusive so-called wire fraud
If Touro would try to give business to heimishe people they would save millions but it may not look professional to have someone that looks heimish to run their colleges construction.
wow, when will this fraud, and schemes will stop?
Touro is opening Osteopathic medical school and not a standard medical school. D.O.s unlike M.D.s undergo less rigorous training and their standardized residency and licensing is easier compared to what M.D.s have to go through. Ask any expert. I guess it’s a smart move on behalf of Touro since their students are Kolel guys who most likely don’t have much time for a regular tough medical school program.
This is basic bzns, y is this even an article?
Its standard practice by evry1
Stop acting like u r shocked
For those whose reading comprehension may have failed them, Touro is the VICTIM in this story, not the perpetrator. In other words, the allegation is that Touro was, essentially, robbed by the contractor. The headline should be changed to indicate that.