US attorney's office faulted on Big Dig
A US District Court judge said yesterday that federal prosecutors failed to thoroughly investigate a scheme in which a Big Dig contractor overcharged the government.
Chief Judge Mark L. Wolf then used the court hearing to criticize the US attorney's office in Boston for not serving as a more aggressive watchdog on the massive project.
In sharply critical remarks from the bench, Wolf said federal prosecutors never pursued allegations that Steven M. Bowers, a senior project manager for Mass. Electric Construction Co., had routinely inflated bills for his employer on numerous public and private construction projects in and outside the state since 1989.
As a result, Wolf said, the judge's options were limited when he sentenced Bowers yesterday to 15 months in federal prison for his role in a scheme to defraud the government of more than $80,000.
When Assistant US Attorney Anthony E. Fuller said it would have taken extraordinary resources to pursue the allegations made by one of two co-workers charged with Bowers in the scheme, Wolf snapped: "You've got two cooperating witnesses. I don't know how much more it would take to ask them obvious questions."
Wolf later said he had not seen the US attorney's office prosecute many cases stemming "out of the Big Dig that the newspapers say went from about $3 billion to $15 billion."
Wolf added, "When a public works project soars from $3 billion to $15 billion, it breeds a sense in the community - in this case, the country - that government is incompetent."
A spokeswoman for US Attorney Michael J. Sullivan declined to comment.
Wolf, who served as chief of the public corruption unit of the US attorney's office from 1981 to 1985, has criticized the office sharply before. In a Globe story in 2004, Wolf said that under Sullivan the office was spending too much time on drug and gun cases that belong in state court, instead of focusing on public corruption and white-collar offenses that he said would have a greater impact on society.
Wolf focused his criticism yesterday on prosecutors' handling of a specific case, one that stemmed from the $15 billion public works project whose 16 years of detours, leaks, lawsuits, and construction bills have frustrated many in Massachusetts.
Bowers, a Fairhaven resident, pleaded guilty in August to conspiracy to defraud the government and making false statements in connection with the Interstate 93 tunnel finishing contract. He and two other employees of the company defrauded the federal government from January 2003 through June 2005 by submitting bills falsely asserting that work done by apprentice electricians was completed by higher-paid journeymen, prosecutors said.
The two other employees, Brian Di Re of Winchester and Richard Joyce of Norwood, pleaded guilty to charges of submitting false claims and were each sentenced to probation in exchange for their cooperation.
In a presentencing report that Wolf examined, he noticed that Joyce had told prosecutors that he and Bowers had charged public and private customers more than they should have for apprentice electricians routinely since 1989. If prosecutors had confirmed that, Wolf said, Bowers could have received a considerably harsher punishment than the 12 to 18 months in prison recommended by sentencing guidelines.
But, Fuller said, "it was a remark that wasn't followed up on."
Wolf also grilled Fuller about whether the work carried out by apprentices rather than more experienced journeymen might pose a hazard to the public.
Fuller said prosecutors had no evidence that the billing fraud had any bearing on public safety, but Wolf did not seem satisfied with that response either.
Prosecutors had recommended that Bowers spend about 10 months in prison. The defendant's lawyer, John J. Ruby Jr., recommended that Bowers be sentenced to home confinement, saying that Bowers and his wife had six adopted children and that Bowers was the sole breadwinner.
After Bowers apologized to the court and his family for what he characterized as a lapse in paperwork, Wolf sentenced him to 15 months and ordered him or Mass. Electric to pay restitution. Wolf said the sentence was more than prosecutors recommended in part because Bowers had failed to admit that he committed fraud and because the judge wanted to send a message that "it's not only wrong, it's dumb to try to cheat the people of the United States."
Jonathan Saltzman can be reached at jsaltzman@globe.com. 