Department of Justice
U.S. Attorney’s Office
Eastern District of New York
Friday, April 1, 2016
Earlier today in Brooklyn federal court, Muzaffar Nadeem, the owner of SM&B Construction Co., Inc. (SM&B), was sentenced to 96 months’ imprisonment, ordered to pay more than $1.3 million in restitution to the IRS, and ordered to forfeit to the government over $7.1 million in criminal proceeds, following his convictions on May 8, 2015, after a four-week jury trial, for mail and wire fraud, structuring financial transactions, federal programs bribery, making illegal cash payments to a union official, money laundering, unlawful monetary transactions over $10,000, subscribing to false tax returns, and multiple related conspiracy charges.
The convictions arose out of Nadeem’s leadership role in a long-running scheme to pay SM&B’s workers a fraction of the prevailing wage on projects funded by the New York City School Construction Authority (SCA), as SM&B was legally and contractually required to do. Nadeem’s co-conspirators Zainul Syed, Afzaal Chaudry and Irfan Muzaffar were also convicted at trial of various crimes for their participation in this scheme. Muzaffar was previously sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment, and Chaudry was previously sentenced time served, following approximately ten months of imprisonment. Syed is awaiting sentencing. The sentencing proceedings were held before U.S. District Judge Brian M. Cogan.