(Source: NY Daily News) An experienced contractor and two other businessmen took advantage of their non-English speaking employees by undercutting their wages and pocketing more than $1 million from the city, prosecutors said.
Mehdi Dayan, 67, allegedly underpaid 27 employees who worked on an $8 million construction project to the restore the exterior and replace the roofing of two NYCHA projects — Brown Houses in Crown Heights and Glenmore Plaza in Brownsville.
Dayan’s company, EEC Group Tech, Inc., won the bid in March 2014.
Dayan, a civil engineer and a Ph.D, brought on Mohammad Miah, 58 and Sharifullah Sowpon, 41, to do the masonry and roof work through their company T & J Contracting Inc.
They were ordered pay federal wages ranging from $61 to $80 per-hour to the workers, prosecutors said.
Instead, between April 29, 2014, and Nov. 19, 2015, the workers were paid $15 to $25 per-hour.
Dayan, Miah and Sowpon were variously charged on a 40-count indictment.
“(Dayan) had workers sign receipts that were written in English that they received the correct pay when their native languages are Tibetan, Albanian and Punjabi,” said Assistant District Attorney Meredith McGowan at the trio’s arraignment on Wednesday...