Coakley
BOSTON (Legal Newsline) - Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley announced on Wednesday that she has filed a lawsuit against a construction management company that allegedly overcharged the Massachusetts Port Authority.
URS Corporation, a California-based company with several Massachusetts offices, was hired to renovate Logan International Airport. Its employee, George Papadopoulos, allegedly tried to defraud Massport with inflated invoices and phony receipts.
The suit alleges that because of Papadopoulos' actions, URS was overpaid by as much as $1.3 million.
Coakley alleges that, as project manager for the Logan renovation project, Papadopoulos orchestrated a scheme to overcharge Massport and steal $1.3 million by submitting monthly claims for thousands of dollars of personal reimbursements.
Papadopoulos allegedly did this by submitting false invoices on behalf of URS to Massport that contained inflated labor and other charges. Massport then paid URS the inflated amount and the company would then reimburse Papadopoulos, Coakley said.
The suit also alleges that URS should have detected the fraud, since Papadopoulos regularly submitted invoices for thousands of dollars of unexplained personal reimbursements in a six year period.
Papadopoulos had previously pled guilty to criminal charges brought by Coakley in April and was sentenced to 4-5 years in state prison after pleading guilty to larceny and procurement fraud.
On Dec. 14, 2009, Massport filed a lawsuit against URS arising out of the false invoice scheme.