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Businesses that bid on government contracts want the attention of the agencies choosing to award them, but that doesn’t mean they aspire to demand the kind of focus that can result in a criminal investigation. The Columbus Dispatch tells the story of an excavating company whose owner got more attention than he bargained for when he submitted a proposal for work to be performed in an Ohio city.
The story states that when this criminal contractor entered bids with the city of Lancaster, Ohio, he reported that his company had no employees and no payroll. Further research into this case showed that the city of Lancaster raised questions about the bid because they were wary of awarding a contract to a firm that failed to contribute to the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation. (Businesses in Ohio are required to maintain workers’ compensation coverage. Somehow, this criminal excavator thought that by failing to pay the BWC, he had a winning strategy.)
A tip to the state workers’ compensation bureau prompted an investigation and the subsequent discovery of the contractor’s attempts to defraud the agency. It turns out that three additional false certificates in previous bid packets were discovered. The man initially denied having any knowledge of them, but later admitted to creating and submitting them. (In an interview, he reportedly admitted to always having employees, then later reneged saying he hired subcontractors. Maybe he was confused about which answer would get him out of the hole he had dug for himself.) The investigation eventually determined that the company owner under reported his payroll because he didn’t want to pay the workers’ compensation insurance premiums.
The contractor pleaded guilty to a felony count of workers’ compensation fraud and was sentenced to six months in prison. He was also ordered to repay $5,404 in restitution to the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation.
The story notes that this fraudster’s six-month prison sentence was suspended for three years of community control, which is essentially jail at home. (Instead of excavating for the city of Lancaster, it looks like this fraudster’s business may be bulldozed.)
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