Construction firm owner gets probation in contract scheme

Donald Taylor’s construction company lost $40 million in four years and he has had to lay off about half of his 300 employees, including two of his daughters, because of a scheme in which he used a minority-owned bridge company as a front to gain governmentcontracts.

But he won’t have to go to prison.

To the relief of a courtroom packed with well-wishers, U.S. District Judge Nora Barry Fischer on Tuesday granted a defense request for probation, giving him three years and 300 hours of community service. The U.S. attorney’s office did not object.

Taylor, 78, owner of Century Steel Erectors in Dravosburg, had pleaded guilty in October to conspiracy against the U.S. for a passthrough scheme in which he used West Mifflin Construction Co., a minority-owned bridge company in Finleyville, to get highway work through a federal minority set-aside-program.

Watson Maloy, the owner of the bridge company, who is black, was sentenced to probation in February for his role.

Maloy’s company was designated by the federal government as a disadvantaged business. WMCC entered into a series of subcontracts with Century Steel for Pennsylvania Department of

Transportation and Turnpike Commission bridge projectsfrom 2012 to 2014.

But Century Steel did all of the work. WMCC did nothing.

To hide the deceit, Century ironworkers and engineers wore WMCC hard hats and shirts, used WMCC business cards and placed WMCC magnetic signs on their trucks, obscuring their own company’slogo.

Taylor, who is white, admitted that the two companies fraudulently obtained PennDOT subcontracts resulting in payments to WMCC of a little over $1 million.For his help, Taylor paid Maloy a periodic fee ranging from $2,000 to $10,000.

Taylor’s friends and family wrote 60 letters to the judge asking for leniency, and several testified.

All said he built his family-run company through hard work, provided for his family, looked out for his employees and helped members of his community.

Leslie Hartman, a Century project manager, said Taylor had endured the loss of his son in 2004, the death of a grandson and the 2017 murder of his granddaughter, Jessica Taylor, in McKeesport, the death of his wife and the near-collapse of his business.

A company that once brought in $35 million a year is barred from governmentwork.

“And still he worries about the rest of us,” Mr. Hartman said. “I love Don Taylor and that’s why I’m heretoday.”

Taylor’s lawyer, Thomas J. Farrell, said he had accumulated a lifetime of good will.Sometimes, he said, it’s appropriate to “cash in those chits” in an hour of need.

“Today is one of those times,”he said.

Asked by the judge if he wanted to say anything on his own behalf, Taylor said only, “Your honor, I’m not very good at public speaking. I’ll do whatever you tell meto do.”

The judge said probation was appropriate because of a combination of factors, including Taylor’s age, his remorse and his history of charitable works. She said Taylor was not like some white-collar defendants who discover charity only after the FBI shows up.

She also said that the pass-throughscheme, while a serious abuse of a system set up to help minority businessowners, was an aberration in an otherwise lawabiding life.