By JAY LINDSAY
The Associated Press
Thursday, May 4, 2006; 11:02 PM
BOSTON -- Six men who worked for the Big Dig's largest concrete supplier were arrested Thursday on federal charges accusing them of falsifying records to hide the inferior quality of concrete delivered to the massive highway project.
The six, all current or former employees of Aggregate Industries, face a variety of charges including making false statements, mail fraud and conspiracy to defraud the government between 1996 and August 2005.
The indictment charges the men with recycling concrete that was too old or already rejected by inspectors, and in some cases double-billing for the loads. The company was paid $105 million for 135,000 truckloads of concrete, and at least 5,000 truckloads did not meet specifications, according to the indictment.
Lawyers for Aggregate Industries have defended the quality of its concrete and said it never delivered any that did not meet strength specifications called for in its state contract.
Stephen Delinsky, an attorney for one of the defendants, Gerard McNally, said prosecutors are looking to place blame for the troubled project.
"It's always easy to blame the lowest level, which is the concrete manufacturers," Delinsky said. "Each defendant believed that they acted in good faith. They believed at all times their conduct was legal and believed the concrete delivered to the Big Dig was appropriate."
The men were released on $100,000 unsecured bond each after making initial appearances in U.S. District Court in Boston.
The Big Dig, formally called the Central Artery and Third Harbor Tunnel project, buried Interstate 93 in tunnels beneath downtown and connected the Massachusetts Turnpike to Logan Airport with a third tunnel beneath Boston Harbor.
The project was plagued by long delays and cost overruns that ballooned from $2.6 billion to $14.6 billion. Earlier this year, after more than a decade of traffic detours, the last major section of the project opened.
U.S. Attorney Michael Sullivan said while the concrete didn't meet project standards, it was not necessarily of poor quality. Part of the scheme's undoing, according to Sullivan, was the company's own record-keeping. One shift of workers kept logs of concrete loads in which concrete was reused, or mixes exceeding a 90-minute limit were delivered, sometimes with water added to make it look fresher, the indictment alleges.
Aggregate Industries said in a statement Thursday that it will cooperate with authorities. It suspended the four indicted men who still work for the company.
"As a result of extensive testing by industry experts, Aggregate Industries is satisfied that all of the concrete it has supplied on the Big Dig and throughout the commonwealth is structurally sound," the statement said.