Big crackdown on wage-cheat bosses

A GROUP OF prosecutors unveiled Monday an areawide crackdown on crooked contractors who rip off workers, announcing charges against 10 companies and 11 owners.

Included was a Long Island contractor, Vickram Mangru, caught stealing from workers four years ago, who reopened his business under a different name and proceeded to underpay workers by an additional $281,000, prosecutors charged.

Another Long Island firm, Sky Materials Corp., was convicted of manslaughter last year in the death of a worker buried alive at a job site in the Meatpacking District.

All told, the targeted companies stole a total of $2.5 million in wages from workers, many of whom are undocumented and afraid to file complaints, prosecutors said.

Mangru; his wife, Gayatri, and his son Ravi were indicted in Bronx Supreme Court on Monday on charges of stealing $281,630 in wages from workers laboring for AVM Construction.

Their lawyers did not return calls for comment.