Employees of Mechanical Contractors Charged with Conspiracy and Fraud Offenses

Leonard C Boyle, Acting United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, today announced that a New Hampshire resident and a Connecticut resident have been charged in separate criminal complaints with conspiracy and fraud offenses stemming from their alleged involvement in construction project fraud schemes.

WILLIAM SACCO, 48, of Pelham, New Hampshire, was arrested on November 22.  He appeared today via videoconference before U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas O. Farrish in Hartford and is released on a $50,000 bond.

As alleged in the criminal complaint, Sacco was a project manager for a Massachusetts-based mechanical contractor.  From June 2014 through December 2018, Sacco conspired to defraud his employer and the owners of certain projects he managed by inflating change orders on the projects.  As part of the conspiracy, a co-conspirator subcontractor made payments to Sacco and also for Sacco’s benefit, including payments for Sacco’s children’s college tuition, a graduation party, a Mac laptop, airline tickets, hotels and Sacco’s rent.  Sacco and the co-conspirator submitted inflated change orders to Sacco’s employer to offset some of the costs of the payments the co-conspirator made to Sacco.

In a separate case, DON RICHARDS, 53, of Milford, Connecticut, was arrested on October 19, 2021, on a criminal complaint.  Richards was a senior project manager at a Massachusetts-based mechanical contractor.  It is alleged that from November 2014 through February 2018, Richards also conspired to defraud his employer and project owners by inflating change orders on certain projects he was managing.  As part of this separate conspiracy, a co-conspirator subcontractor made payments to Richards and also for Richards’s benefit, including gift cards and funds for a golf club membership.  Richards and the co-conspirator submitted inflated change orders to Richards’s employer to offset some of the costs of the payments the co-conspirator made to Richards.

Sacco and Richards are each charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and wire fraud.  Each offense carries a maximum term of imprisonment of 20 years.

Richards is released on a $100,000 bond.

Acting U.S. Attorney Boyle stressed that each complaint is only a charge and is not evidence of guilt.  Charges are only allegations and each defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

These investigations are being conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Defense Criminal Investigative Service.  The cases are being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney David T. Huang, with assistance from the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division, New York Office.