Mafia-linked construction manager convicted of posing as women-owned business

A repeatedly convicted Manhattan entrepreneur with ties to the Mafia was sentenced Tuesday to two to six years in prison for a litany of crimes, including endangering his workers and pocketing millions all by disguising his business as female ownership in order to obtain lucrative carpentry contracts.

Larry Wecker, 83, smiling, dressed in a burgundy shirt, gray pants and handcuffs, appeared calm during his brief sentencing in Manhattan Supreme Court, saying nothing before Judge Althea Drysdale delivered the sentence. penalty.

He agreed to be incarcerated in an upstate New York prison as part of a deal with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office before pleading guilty to corporate corruption in January for several stratagems. These included covering up the injuries of undocumented workers and forcing them to pay and benefit hikes, stealing thousands of dollars from his clients through false invoices, and pretending that a woman was the owner. of his company, JM3.

Wecker was also the victim of attempted gun possession for packing a .38-caliber revolver into his Sutton Place apartment in Manhattan. His company pleaded guilty to the fraudulent scheme.

Over the decades, Wecker racked up several state and federal convictions for involvement in organized crime and corrupt construction work, including in 2001 for bribing a labor official in a case brought by former prosecutor Bob Morgenthau that identified Wecker as an associate of the Lucchese and Genovese crime families. He served 16 months for these crimes. That same year, he pleaded guilty in Brooklyn federal court to conspiracy to commit tax crimes stemming from mob rule over New York's concrete industry, earning him a 41-month sentence.

The convicted octogenarian was arrested in May 2023 along with seven other players in the construction sector following a large-scale investigation by the prosecutor following a suspicious cash check. Alongside Wecker, his longtime associate, entrepreneur Shamsuddin Riza, was indicted for falsifying business records. he has since pleaded guilty in another case to orchestrate a straw donor scheme to inject illegal donations into Eric Adams' 2021 mayoral campaign. Adams has not been accused of wrongdoing in this case.

Beginning in 2015, Wecker's latest schemes included creating a fake company called LNR Construction in the name of co-defendant Lisa Rossi and certifying herself as minority or female-owned in order to obtain contracts as a guise. transfer, prosecutors said.

He also falsified records and laundered millions to make it appear that his company, which specialized in drywall and carpentry in government-subsidized affordable housing, was subcontracting with women- and minority-owned businesses, according to court documents. Wecker bribed legitimately deserving business owners to bid on multimillion-dollar city and state contracts, prosecutors said.

The contracts covered at least seven projects in Brooklyn, Manhattan, the Bronx and New Rochelle, New York, and required some of the work to be done by women or minority workers. Instead, they were run by more than 60 Wecker employees and subcontracting companies, which primarily recruited undocumented and uninsured workers to work for money.

In court papers filed when Wecker was indicted, prosecutors said he often sought to cover up injuries suffered by illegal workers. In an intercepted call in January 2021, Wecker said one of his workers who had just broken his arm on the job “didn't need a damn doctor” and told the foreman in charge to bring back the worker injured at work the next day, then pretend the person had fallen in the street.

When questioned Tuesday, Bragg's office pointed to a previous statement describing Wecker's scams as having deprived legitimate minority- and women-owned businesses of the chance to do business. Wecker's Palm Beach, Fla., attorney, Robert Franklin, did not immediately return a call from the Daily News seeking comment.