Investigations

On December 7, 2016, Miguel Demenjon, owner and president of a New Jersey-based DBE, Mimosa Construction Inc. (Mimosa), was sentenced in U.S. District Court, New York, to 15 months’ incarceration, 3 years’ supervised release, and restitution of $448,841.68, payable to the trustee of Mimosa’s bankruptcy estate. In July 2016, Demenjon pleaded guilty to concealing assets in a bankruptcy proceeding, as part of an ongoing DBE and prevailing wage fraud investigation.

 

Mimosa had performed work on various Federal Highway Administration-funded bridge projects in the New York metropolitan area, including the Alexander Hamilton Bridge Rehabilitation Project (AHBP), where Mimosa had a $7.7 million subcontract. When it was awarded, the AHBP was the largest single-contract construction project in the history of the NYS Department of Transportation. It cost $416 million and was funded almost entirely by Federal monies. While the AHBP project was ongoing, Demenjon declared bankruptcy. DOT-OIG’s investigation developed information indicating that Demenjon concealed and transferred assets from Mimosa to undermine the bankruptcy proceedings.

 

DOT-OIG is conducting this investigation jointly with DOL-OIG.