It's good to see diversity is only a minor obstacle to our business plans
Federal agents search 2 Big Dig companies
US investigating use of sham firms
By Raphael Lewis, Globe Staff, 4/3/2004
Federal agents searched the offices of two Big Dig subcontractors Thursday as part of a nationwide probe into large construction firms setting up sham firms with women or minority executives, in order to obtain lucrative public works contracts, federal and industry officials said yesterday.
About two-dozen federal agents executed search warrants at two North Shore firms, PT Corp. and Testa Corp., the officials said.
From 2001 until last summer, PT Corp. of Lynnfield, a state-certified woman-owned business, had been in charge of dismantling the 1.5-mile elevated Central Artery. But the firm fell behind schedule and was replaced by Testa Corp., a major player in the demolition field.
PT Corp.'s chief executive is listed by the state as Pamela J. O'Brien. She is the sister of Steven Testa, who runs Testa Corp.
The prime contractor overseeing the subcontract is Modern Continental Construction Co. Inc. of Cambridge, one of the nation's largest construction firms and the company that has performed more Big Dig work than any other.
Like many federal construction projects, the Big Dig requires a certain percentage of contracts to go to minority- or women-owned firms, such as PT Corp.
It was not known, however, exactly what aspect of the contract are being examined by the federal investigators from the US Department of Transportation 's office of inspector general; the US Department of Labor's office of labor, racketeering, and fraud investigations; and the Internal Revenue Service.
