Thursday, 4:30 PM
Six concrete company employees arrested on charges of Big Dig fraud
Six employees of Aggregate Industries, the major concrete supplier for the Big Dig, were arrested this morning on federal charges alleging they falsified records to cover for substandard concrete they supplied to the project.
The six current or former employees of Aggregate Industries face charges including making false statements, mail fraud and conspiracy to commit highway fraud.
Indicted were Robert Prosperi, general manager of Aggregate's concrete division; Gregory A. Stevenson, district operations manager of concrete division; Gerard M. McNally, quality control manager; Keith H. Thomas, assistant dispatch manager in the ready mix concrete division; Marc Blais and John J. Farrar, both dispatch managers in the ready-mix concrete division. Stevenson and Farrar both left the company.
They are charged with conspiring between 1996 and last August 2005 to make false claims and representations about the character, quality, quantity and cost of concrete provided to the Big Dig project. The indictment alleges they recycled concrete that was over 90 minutes old and had been adulterated with excess water. They delivered at least 5,000 truckloads of such concrete.
The U.S. Attorney's office plans to hold a 1:15 p.m. news conference with the Department of Transportion, Attorney General's office, and the FBI and others to discuss the arrests.
Last August state and federal prosecutors were investigating allegations that Aggregate Industries, delivered substandard concrete to the $14.6 billion project on hundreds of occasions and falsified records to conceal the poor quality.
State troopers and prosecutors raided Aggregate Industries properties in Peabody, Saugus, and Everett in June and turned up evidence that the company had drawn up phony documents to make it appear that truckloads of old or rejected concrete were freshly poured.
Attorney Thomas Reilly said after the raid that he began working in concert with the FBI and US Attorney Michael J. Sullivan's office to prosecute the case aggressively. "We got the records that we were looking for and the information we were looking for," Reilly said.
Reilly said last August that it did not appear at that time that the concrete used in the Big Dig posed structural or safety concerns.
"Right now, we have no information that safety or strength or durability is an issue," Reilly said in August. "But we are continuing to look at certain areas. I came away comforted [from the conversation with the specialist], but that does not excuse the behavior."
The allegations concern concrete that was delivered at least five years ago, and if the concrete was causing structural problems, they would probably have appeared by now, Reilly said.
"All of this was poured prior to 2000, and you would expect to see deterioration," he said.
Reilly also said that he has no reason to believe the inquiry is con nected to the discovery of hundreds of leaks in the tunnels, which has sparked separate federal and state investigations.
The allegations about the concrete stemmed from a whistleblower suit filed May 16, 2005 in Suffolk Superior Court. A Suffolk County grand jury was impaneled to hear evidence in the case, and Aggregate Industries officials have also appeared before a federal grand jury sitting in Worcester
