Business owner and former Cortlandt official are accused of fraud
A previous town of Cortlandt employee and the owner of a landscaping organization have been arrested Thursday and indicted on general public corruption and fraud fees in relationship with an unlawful dumping plan on a town-owned lot.
Robert Dyckman, 51 of Verplanck, a previous assistant basic foreman with the town of Cortlandt, and Glenn Griffin, 53, of Cortlandt Manor, the proprietor, president and principal of Griffin’s Landscaping Company, have been arrested and indicted, in accordance to Damian Williams, the U.S. Lawyer for the Southern District of New York.
Griffin also was indicted in relationship with a independent bid-rigging plan in the village of Croton-on-Hudson and the hamlet of Verplanck.
The scenarios were being investigated by the FBI and the Westchester County Police Department, with guidance from the Westchester County District Attorney’s place of work and the New York Town Section of Investigation.
The indictments allege that from 2018 right up until February of 2020, Dyckman gave Griffin and his staff members unauthorized accessibility to the Arlo Lane internet site, wherever they dumped hundreds of truckloads of unauthorized content these kinds of as thick concrete, cement with rebar, large rocks and soil.
The town estimated it would have to invest involving $600,000 and $1.5 million to take away the materials.
Williams stated in exchange for obtain to the Arlo Lane web site, Griffin gave Dyckman hard cash bribes, firewood, flowers and gardening supplies, and created substantial improvements to Dyckman’s residence at no price. He also gave Dyckman a backdated, fake invoice to give to his coverage organization to assist a wrong insurance plan declare.
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Dyckman organized for a subordinate town personnel to work additional time when Griffin was dumping, commonly on Saturdays or just after doing the job hrs, but falsely documented the time as remaining labored through typical working several hours.
Dyckman, who worked for Cortlandt for 28 a long time, was fired following he allegedly was caught on videotape offering Griffin entry to the internet site in 2019.
Meanwhile, in between 2015 and 2018, Griffin allegedly defrauded the village of Croton-on-Hudson for function on its educational institutions and the hamlet of Verplanck for work on its fire division.
Williams said Griffin allegedly designed sham, non-competitive and inflated bids on behalf of entities that he did not operate for or have authorization to submit bids on behalf of, so that he would be the small bidder in a pool of purportedly aggressive bids and receive general public cash for function on the tasks.
Williams mentioned Griffin was awarded contracts with a put together benefit of far more than $133,000 in these communities.
Griffin faces a greatest sentence of 60 many years in jail if he is convicted of all expenses versus him, when Dyckman faces a most sentence of 20 a long time in prison if he is convicted of all prices versus him.
They had been scheduled to seem Thursday afternoon just before U.S. Magistrate Judge Andrew E. Krause in federal courtroom in White Plains.
Mike Randall covers breaking news for the Instances Herald-File, the Poughkeepsie Journal and the Journal Information/lohud. Access him at [email protected] or on Twitter @MikeRandall845