Construction company owner sentenced for fraud conspiracy in connection with the renovation of the John W. McCormack Post Office and Courthouse in Boston.
Wael Isreb, 55, of Wrentham, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge George A. O’Toole, Jr., to four years of probation, including 18 months of home confinement, and ordered to pay $164,627 in restitution. In March 2014, Isreb and his co-defendant, Aluisio Dasilva, 67, of Hudson, Mass., each pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit mail fraud and false statements.
Isreb was the owner of Taunton Forms, a now-defunct concrete construction company based in Lakeville, Mass. In September 2006, the General Services Administration retained Suffolk Construction Company as the general contractor to renovate the McCormack Building. Suffolk Construction, in turn, retained Taunton Forms as a subcontractor to perform certain concrete work on that project. Suffolk Construction ultimately paid Taunton Forms in excess of $1 million for its work.
Federal law requires that contractors on federal projects over $2,000 pay workers a prevailing wage, and that they submit weekly reports certifying the wages they paid their employees. Beginning in about December 2007, however, Isreb conspired with Dasilva and others to pay Taunton Forms workers less than the prevailing wage while certifying to Suffolk Construction, the GSA, and the United States Department of Labor (DOL) that Taunton Forms was, in fact, paying the prevailing wage.