Three men who defrauded the city of millions of dollars during the CityTime project were each sentenced to 20 years in prison on Monday.
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Three men who defrauded the city of millions of dollars during the CityTime project were each sentenced to 20 years in prison on Monday.
Mark Mazer, Gerard Denault and Dimitry Aronshtein were convicted in November for their roles in the fraud scheme, carried out during the CityTime payroll modernization project.
Prosecutors said the defendants were responsible for more than $100 million in losses to the city. The expansive CityTime scandal involved kickbacks, overfiling and money laundering.
“These defendants are being justly punished – through lengthy sentences and forfeiture of over $40 million in cash and property – for orchestrating one of the largest and most brazen frauds ever committed against the city,” Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement.
The men were all employees of Science Applications International Corporation, lead contractor on the CityTime project.
The city initially budgeted $63 million for the project, but CityTime’s cost had ballooned to $700 million by 2011, according to a federal indictment. Prosecutors said nearly all of the $600 million paid to SAIC was tainted by fraud.
SAIC was not charged criminally, instead agreeing to pay back more than $500 million.
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