Court reduces sentences for construction execs

Two construction executives sentenced to up to 20 years for faking concrete and steel safety tests had their sentences drastically reduced by a state appellate panel on Thursday, the Associated Press reported.

The judges dismissed the most serious charge, enterprise corruption, against V. Reddy Kancharla and Vincent Barone, respectively the CEO and vice-president of Testwell Laboratories Inc. Now, the men could serve as little as 16 months — or as much as four years — in prison.

The executives were convicted of faking test results for almost 120 city projects, including One World Trade Center, the centerpiece skyscraper of the ground zero development, and the new Yankee stadium.

In their decision, however, the judges found prosecutors “failed to produce any evidence that either defendant knew that the rest results and inspection reports were fabricated, much less that the defendants spearheaded a criminal enterprise.” The other fraud-related convictions for submitting phony tests at the sites remained unchanged. [NYP] – Hiten Samtani