One year ago, Testwell Laboratories, a concrete testing company, and two Testwell officials were found guilty of falsifying results on major public works projects. On Thursday, the owner and five employees at the company chosen to replace Testwell on some of those projects surrendered to face charges that they did the same thing on those jobs and hundreds of others.
They are accused of falsifying thousands of tests at Yankee Stadium, the Second Avenue subway, public schools, among many other projects, and private buildings.
A 29-count indictment charges the six men and the company, American Standard Testing and Consulting Laboratories, under the state racketeering law. It accuses them of a money-making scheme that included falsifying the results of tests required by law to measure the strength and quality of concrete poured on projects in New York City, Westchester County and Long Island. The decade-long scheme also included falsifying documents to get city licenses and manipulating government programs to get jobs for which they were not entitled, according to the charges.
The owner of the company, Alan Fortich, 44; his brother, Alvaro Fortich Jr., 32, and the four other defendants surrendered Thursday morning at the offices of the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr. They were expected to be arraigned later in State Supreme Court in Manhattan.
“The volume of fabricated tests is egregious,” Mr. Vance told reporters. “It was systemic; it was pervasive.” .....
It's amazing how often something like this happens. I don't think these people realize that their actions have the potential to endanger hundreds or thousands of lives.
I've been around construction management for for a few years, and I've heard contractors say, "We don't need a construction manager watching our work. We know what we're doing and we'll do it right." Unfortunately, actions usually show otherwise.
Back in 2005, I was reading some reports on Three Gorges dam in China. There were accusations that there was a lot of "brother-in-lawing" going on with the concrete and the cement being used was sub-par. It will be tragic if that monstrosity fails!
Here's today's ENR article about the test falsifying:
http://enr.construction.com/yb/enr/article.aspx?story_id=162057464
This is where experience comes in. We have guys that will pour out a chute's worth and can tell you the 28 day break within a few hundred psi based on the way it rolls off the chute, no credentials other than 30 years pouring concrete. They will also reject a truck right in the middle of a big pour with the same chute test, and not once have I ever heard a concrete company challenge their decision. We don't pay for rejected trucks, so the batch plant eats the cost.
We hire additional inspectors with 3rd party objectivity, no dog in the hunt one way or another, for our own protection and to guard against this very type of cronyism.
I could give several examples but would need to move this to P and R.
> "We don't need a construction manager watching our work. We know what we're doing and we'll do it right."
Instant red flag. Just ask any FBI Investigator...
Know of a destruction--er--construction company who did have the FBI pay them a lasting visit of a couple of years. Let's just say that the company changed hands from the parents--who went to jail--to the kids and they are no longer allowed to do any federal or state funded construction work.
I know of a guy who ran a testing lab and was found guilty of falsifying results, he went to prison for 6 years, was slapped with a multimillion dollar penalty, and lost his P.E. license.
Not something to screw around with.
About 15 years ago I got a phone call from a company located several counties south of me, saying that I had surveyed some monitoring wells for them and that they had some more they needed surveyed. After getting the name and location, I was unable to recall doing the work, and digging into my project database showed the same. I told the caller that I had no record of surveying his wells. There as a long pause, after which he sighed, "I was afraid of that." It turned out that a civil engineer had used my name and number to falsify the well survey, and I later learned that he had also falsified the lab results for the groundwater tests. The reason he got caught is that someone at the county noticed that his fake water level elevations had the groundwater flowing uphill to a point in the middle of the job.
He was convicted of falsifying the lab results -- they didn't charge him with posing as a licensed land surveyor -- and spent a year in the county jail, in addition to losing his engineering license.
It was kind of creepy knowing that someone had been using my name and number. Fortunately, it hasn't happened since.
"American Standard Testing and Consulting Laboratories Inc., President Alan Fortich and five staffers pleaded not guilty to racketeering and other charges in the latest of a string of cases the Manhattan district attorney's office has brought against concrete-testing labs...
...But the case spotlighted the stubborn presence of concerns about fraud in an industry important to the safety of a city of skyscrapers and subways, especially since prosecutors said ASTC's 12 years of fraud continued even after another major lab was indicted and city officials tightened oversight of concrete testing in the last three years.
Racketeering and other charges? Sounds like common criminals to me, but you know that Liberals everywhere will try to use this as an excuse for bigger government and more regulations that are already choking the life out of the industry.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/08/04/national/main20088304.shtml
Hello P.L. Parsons,
I just wanted to tell you that I work in a materials research and testing laboratory and your post is just the most ridiculous thing I have ever read. Thank you for the laughs. I will be sure to show it to everyone in our laboratory and hope they enjoy it as much as I do. The people at the plants that we inspect will love it too.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha !
Paul
