LI man gets 3 years in kickback scheme

A Bellmore man was sentenced Wednesday to 3 years in prison for taking at least $1 million in kickbacks in a bid-rigging scheme on a $12-million Touro College expansion project in Manhattan.

Former Touro construction manager Lawrence Pesce, 46, received the kickbacks from a New Jersey construction company bidding on a new School of Pharmacy, and took some of his payoffs in the form of $350,000 in assistance buying some waterfront property on Bellmore Creek in Wantagh, prosecutors alleged.

U.S. District Judge Barbara Jones, who imposed the sentence, described the crime as an "incredible breach of trust," and Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara condemned Pesce for stealing "from the very nonprofit educational institution whose pocketbook he was supposed to protect," a statement said.

In charges filed a year ago, Pesce was accused of arranging in 2008 to have a New Jersey construction company file a bid inflated by $2 million on the Harlem pharmacy school project. He approved the bid and change orders in return for kickbacks. He pleaded guilty in October.

Prosecutors said Pesce was turned in and secretly tape-recorded by an executive of the construction company as part of a plea deal in a union bribery case.

In their sentencing memorandum, prosecutors portrayed Pesce as greedy and cynical, citing one conversation in which he insisted on dragging out the construction work to milk more money out of the scheme, and another in which he said there was little risk in stealing from a private college.

"It's nonpublic," he said. "[Law enforcement is] . . . interested in, you know, federal offenses and . . . ---- like that. They're not interested in this."

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Pesce, in his filings, asked for leniency because he had lived an otherwise law-abiding life, and was vulnerable to the scheme because of financial pressures and substance abuse issues. His lawyer did not return a call.

The judge also ordered Pesce to forfeit $1 million and pay $2.5 million in restitution. Touro, which estimates its losses at $4 million, said it was "very pleased" by the sentence.

"He took funds that should have been used for education and used them for recreation," said college official Michael Newman.