From the District Attorney’s Office:
Martinez, California – Individuals from two Bay Area construction companies were arraigned on charges of conspiring to misclassify workers to avoid paying workers’ compensation insurance, payroll taxes, and insurance premiums.
Complaints were filed with the court on March 8, 2023. District Attorney Diana Becton said that “Prosecuting insurance fraud is about protecting workers, holding those responsible accountable, and stopping unlawful business schemes.”
The first complaint against 57-year-old Candido Silva, 42-year-old Itamar De Morais Junior, and 42-year-old Irma Ruiz-Alarcon of Atlas Pavers of Concord details how they unlawfully paid over $12 million to its unlicensed and misclassified construction crews from 2016 through 2019. The complaint also alleges that the defendants discussed a desire to avoid insurance with the State Compensation Insurance Fund (“SCIF”) because they knew that SCIF would require an audit of the company’s books.
The second complaint charged 62-year-old Christopher Ray Vieira and 60-year-old Gilbert Roland Guiotti with operating Centrox Construction of San Bruno as a shell company to route unlawful payments to unlicensed subcontractors for Atlas Pavers and others. Both men have been charged with the unlawful use of their CSLB license to aid and abet payments from companies advertising to consumers as licensed contractors to their unlicensed and misclassified subcontractor labor crews. Moreover, the complaint alleges Centrox received a percentage for routing millions of dollars in payroll funds to unlicensed and misclassified subcontractor crews — while fraudulently underreporting the worker’s total compensation amounts to SCIF.
The investigation into Atlas Pavers and Centrox Construction was conducted by the Contra Costa District Attorney’s Office, Contractors’ State Licensing Board, and the California Department of Insurance. California law requires contractors to be licensed in their specialized field, obtain workers’ compensation insurance, and pay taxes.
To report violations, send an email to: DA-ReportFraud@contracostada.org
Maybe DA Diane Becton should be this concerned about prosecuting criminals. I’m not defend these yahoos in this article, but she needs to prosecute ALL crime.
The DA is prosecuting, and you are not happy.
I’m glad to see criminal businesses and business owners charged with crimes like tax fraud, insurance fraud, and contractor’s license fraud, and not JUST poor people, drug addicts, and people who actually commit violent crimes. It’s way past time.
The problem doesn’t always “lie” with the Contractors. With demand for new housing developments shrinking do to the economy that in turn puts huge construction companies back into smaller jobs that the small 1-5 person construction companies live off of during real estate booms. Big companies eat up all the smaller remodel jobs they couldn’t be bothered with during the booms. But the main problem is the Consumer, Period. There is always someone willing to do jobs so cheap it would cost legitimate companies to do the work instead of making a profit. The next problem is these guys who do jobs for nothing are easy to find and require little to no effort by a homeowner wanting a cheap remodel done. All they need to do is drive to ur local Home Depot or Lowe’s and their are plenty of men ready and willing to work for low wages. No job is ever turned down whether they have the skills or not. This puts small legitimate construction companies in a very tight spot as jobs overall have decreased by 50% for remodels as of current. This gives consumers the advantage of paying low wage rates because men need to work. These giant companies need to be held accountable because their just padding their profit margins even more but the small guys are scraping every penny up to survive. As long as these so called task forces don’t go after the small guys then it’s a good thing. The problem is the big companies have the money and have the people who are friends or family in positions of power in city counsels that hand them all the jobs and then make sure they target small contractors instead of their friends large companies. I’ve worked for huge multi-million dollar construction companies, I’ve worked with small 1-5 man businesses and I have worked under the table doing jobs of my own on the side to make extra $$. I have my own company now legitimate with a staff of 1 me. I prefer this as money isn’t everything and family is. Bigger jobs I need man power on I use other company’s that provide basic labor workers above board. Some jobs don’t allow for that so u hire 4-5 guys from Home Depot to demo landscaping for a single day of work as the customer tightened the budget where that’s ur only option. No matter what people think it’s never easy nor does any single contractor follow every law, policy, and code. If they did nobody could afford remodels or ur general repairs as labor costs would soar to ridiculous levels. Bottom line if my clients are happy I’m happy and all my work is 100% guaranteed for 3yrs. Rarely do I need to repair my own work but when it’s my fault I feel obligated. Being Honest and trustworthy is priceless in this industry period.