Shady paperwork helped keep officials in the dark
filed by Persico were misleading and that Robert was still a principal when the renewal application was filed: “Documents were backdated in order to avoid filing a renewal application that acknowledged that PCT was owned and operated by a principal under indictment for significant organized crime activity,” the commission wrote.
Officials say Persico Contracting’s lawyer then began delaying Richard Persico’s scheduled deposition with the intergrity commision. In the end, Richard Persico informed officials he would not answer their questions.
On June 20, 2006, the commission declared, “It is of grave concern . . . that (Persico Contracting) filed a misleading and contradictory application and obstructed the commission’s investigation into the matter.”
Persico Construction, the commission ruled, “may not operate as a trade waste business in the city of New York.”
To get around this problem, Richard Persico created a new company at the same address with the same phone number and with the same equipment, according to records.
Two weeks after informing BIC he wouldn’t cooperate in their probe, he incorporated PCI Industries, listing himself as sole owner.
According to a 2011 lawsuit filed by a union representing some of the company’s workers, “all or most of the property and equipment used by Persico Contracting is or was owned by PCI.”
The lawsuit by the Highway Road & Street Construction Laborers Local 1010 charged that “PCI exists for the purpose of servicing Persico Contracting.”
More recently PCI appears to have skated around multiple obstacles to obtain city contracts.
All contractors seeking city work must detail if the “vendor, any affiliate or any of their current or former principal owners officers or managerial employees (have) been convicted of a felony and/or any crime related to truthfulness and/or any crime related to business conduct in the past 10 years.”
In PCI’s case, they would have had to answer “yes” to this question until July 2016 - 10 years after Robert Persico’s conviction on two federal charges.
But that question is not asked of subcontractors, so in 2014 and 2015 PCI was able to land $2.2 million in city work as a sub-contractor on two projects.
And in December 2016, five months after the 10-year restriction ended, PCI was able to answer “no” to this question when it bid on the first of three contracts with the city.
Richard Persico did not return calls for comment News.
Notified of the Persico contract awards, the city Department of Investigation said it’s working with BIC and the mayor's office of contract services “regarding the timeframe of how long cautions, including BIC denials, remain” in the system.
Asked about the current protocol of erasing negative findings from the system used to vet vendors, Jane Meyer, a spokeswoman for Mayor de Blasio, said, “We will work with our partners in the controller’s office and the Department of Investigation to review protocols that ensure responsible organizations are receiving contracts.” from The