Carting Company Operator Sentenced to 84 Months for Mount Vernon Bribery and Overbilling Scheme

LEV L. DASSIN, the Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and JOSEPH M. DEMAREST, JR., the Assistant Director-in-Charge of the New York Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”), announced that ALBERT TRANQUILLO III was sentenced today to 84 months of imprisonment on charges that he bribed the Supervisor of the Mount Vernon Department of Public Works to allow a carting company TRANQUILLO and a relative operated to overbill the City of Mount Vernon for the removal of waste from Mount Vernon city property. TRANQUILLO also was ordered to pay restitution of $1 million to the City of Mount Vernon.

James Castaldo, the former Supervisor of the Mount Vernon Department of Public Works (“DPW”), pleaded guilty in July 2008 to conspiracy to commit mail fraud and accepting bribes from TRANQUILLO and a relative. Castaldo was sentenced on October 23, 2008, to five years’ imprisonment.

According to a Superseding Indictment filed against TRANQUILLO earlier this year, TRANQUILLO and a relative operated A & D Carting Company. A & D Carting obtained a contract with the City of Mount Vernon in approximately November 2001 to remove construction debris and tree waste from a City storage yard at a rate of $397 per 30-cubic-yard container. The contract required A & D Carting’s invoices to the City to be accompanied by a “ticket” for each 30-yard container removed.

The tickets were supposed to be signed by a Mount Vernon employee at the yard at the time each container was carted away. However, from 2002 through March 2006, TRANQUILLO caused A & D carting to submit tickets and invoices claiming that far more waste had been removed than was actually the case. The scheme succeeded because TRANQUILLO and his relative made payments to the Supervisor of the Mount Vernon Department of Public Works, a position held by Castaldo until he retired in 2005. (In his own guilty plea, Castaldo admitted to participating in the scheme to defraud the City of Mount Vernon and to receiving bribes from TRANQUILLO.)

TRANQUILLO appeared today at 2:30 p.m before United States District Judge STEPHEN C. ROBINSON in White Plains federal court for sentencing. Judge ROBINSON ordered the 84-month sentence to run consecutive to the undischarged terms of imprisonment remaining on a 2007 conviction for racketeering.

Mr. DASSIN praised the investigative work of the FBI.

Assistant United States Attorneys ARLO DEVLIN-BROWN and NICHOLAS MCQUAID are in charge of the prosecution.