An octogenarian construction company boss with alleged mob ties was sent to prison after admitting guilt to a wide-ranging enterprise scheme.
Lawrence Wecker, 84, hobbled into Manhattan Supreme Court with the help of a cane on June 4 and appeared before Judge Althea Drysdale. Wecker, the owner of JM3 Construction, was arrested in May of 2023 on charges of enterprise corruption, which he pleaded guilty to in January.
This was not the first time Wecker has been on the wrong side of the law. In 2001, he was also found to have bribed labor officials, committed tax crimes and worked in connection with the Lucchese and Genovese crime families.
According to court documents, Wecker and a second suspect, Joseph Giunta, engaged in a slew of multiple schemes in which he apparently used minority and women-owned businesses to fraudulently obtain contracts to conduct construction work on affordable housing developments.
“By corrupting the market, Lawrence Wecker and Joseph Guinta robbed legitimate MWBEs and smaller contractors of the chance to do business in New York,” Manhattan District Attorney Bragg said in a January statement. “These defendants engaged in multiple types of fraud and corruption, from committing insurance fraud to doling cash bribes. We will not tolerate fraud in the construction industry, particularly at the expense of New York’s workers.”
Wecker paid off numerous businesses in order to obtain government MWBE contracts, and then falsified records so that instead his personal non-union drywall and carpentry company, JM3, would fulfill the work. Prosecutors said said that JM3 was not qualified to perform many of these projects.
During this process, authorities said, Wecker allegedly bribed officials in order to obtain at least one of the contracts.
As a result, prosecutors said, Wecker, who owned and operated JMC Construction, cashed in about $150,000 a week between 2015 and 2021, which was used to pay subcontractors; however, this money was not reported to the companies’ workers’ compensation insurance providers or tax authorities.
Additionally, it was discovered that both companies took steps to cover up workers’ injuries to prevent their cash payroll from being revealed.
JM3 Construction LLC pleaded guilty to first-degree scheme to defraud. Guinta, 48, pleaded guilty to insurance fraud.
Though his lawyers claimed Wecker was in ill health, Judge Drysdale ordered him to serve between 2 and 6 years in state prison.
When court officers cuffed Wrecker, they were also instructed to bring with him a brown paper bag containing some 19 different medications he will have to take behind bars.
