Lend Lease expected to plead guilty, pay $50M fine to avoid criminal charges

Lend Lease, formerly known as Bovis Lend Lease, is expected to admit to fraud today, and pay a $50 million fine to avoid fraud charges, the New York Times reported. The criminal charges stem from the construction company overbilling the government, according to the Times, in which laborers received pay for two hours of overtime that they did not work so that Lend Lease could keep them motivated to work.

Today, James Abadie, the company’s former executive, will admit that the company overcharged city, state and federal agencies for labor and plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud.

Lend Lease is the company behind the dismantling of the Deutsche Bank Building in Lower Manhattan, which caught fire in the summer of 2007 and killed two firefighters. As previously reported, the Lend Lease supervisors and a subcontractor of the project were cleared of manslaughter charges in a separate case last summer. [NYT]