Four Companies Accused of Evading $1.7 Million in NYC Workers’ Compensation Insurance Premiums – NBC New York (47)

Four interior construction companies, their owners and a manager, have been charged with allegedly evading more than $1.7 million in workers’ compensation insurance premiums over five years, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg announced Wednesday. This through the creation of $20 million of payroll in cash, added the Prosecutor’s Office.

Solomon Feder, 35, Chaim Leifer, 43, their companies Big Apple Designers Inc and Velocity Framers Usa Inc, and manager Moshe Weinberger, 31, colluded with Carlos Santander, 46, and others, to allegedly issue checks payable to the two Santander companies Cis Enterprises Corp and Cis Construction LLC Santander. Then, the report says, he allegedly cashed the checks at commercial check-cashing companies and paid the check-cashing workers. BIG APPLE and VELOCITY with cash envelopes, which allowed businesses to underreport their actual payrolls to the New York State Insurance Fund and avoid paying required premiums.

The defendants were charged with conspiracy in the fourth degree, insurance fraud in the first degree and falsifying business records.

According to court documents and statements made in the court file, Feder and Leifer owned the interior construction companies Big Apple Designers Inc and Velocity Framers Usa Inc, and employed Weinberger to manage the day-to-day operations of the companies. From January 2016 through December 2020, they allegedly colluded with Santander and others to issue checks payable to Santander companies who then cashed those checks, totaling approximately $20 million, in a commercial check-cashing business, the report says. .

Santander and others would pay the workers of Big Apple and Velocity cash in envelopes delivered to construction sites, including the site of a new 13-story residential building in downtown Brooklyn and other locations in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens.

Every year, companies submitted false information to NYSIF during their mandatory audits, which underreported their true payroll figures by millions of dollars. In total, the unofficial compensation scheme allowed the defendants to evade more than $1.7 million in workers’ compensation premiums.

“All workers deserve to be fully protected in the event of a workplace injury, especially in an industry as dangerous as construction,” said District Attorney Bragg. “As alleged in this indictment, instead of securing coverage for their workers, these defendants used a multi-million dollar back-alley compensation scheme to avoid paying premiums, leaving their employees uninsured for years. My office makes sure workers have both the safety precautions and workers’ compensation protections they need to do their jobs without fear.”

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