A Backyard Metropolis man has been charged in reference to a fraud scheme that concerned allegedly underreporting payroll to insurance coverage corporations and dishonest them out of $235,000 in premiums, officers mentioned Tuesday.
Now, Vassilios Handakas, also called William Handakas and Invoice Handakas, faces second-degree insurance coverage fraud and third-degree insurance coverage fraud in addition to failure to safe employees’ compensation.
Handakas, who’s represented by Backyard Metropolis-based attoney Peter Menoudakos, was launched on his personal recognizance and is due again in courtroom Wednesday.
“When an employer makes misrepresentations in regards to the variety of staff at their firm and their payroll figures, they unfairly affect trustworthy employers who bear the burden of insurance coverage fraud within the type of larger premiums and employees who could undergo an harm simply to search out they haven’t any safety by means of employee’s compensation protection,” Nassau District Legal professional Anne Donnelly mentioned in a written assertion.
“This defendant left his employees uncovered and allegedly cheated insurance coverage corporations out of a whole bunch of 1000’s of {dollars},” she added.
New York State Inspector Basic Lucy Lang provided further insights.
“Employers should present employees’ compensation insurance coverage for all staff on payroll,” Lang mentioned in a written assertion. “Failure to take action imperils a vital security internet that so many hardworking New Yorkers and their households want and deserve.”
Donnelly mentioned that Vector Structural Company and Handakos entered right into a contract for a employees’ compensation coverage with an insurance coverage firm for protection between March 2019 and March 2020. Within the software, the corporate allegedly indicated that it employed two masons with an annual payroll of $50,000 a 12 months.
However officers say that the information filed with the state by the corporate and by Handakas allegedly indicated that Vector had 13 staff throughout that timeframe and a payroll of $625,466. The alleged underreporting of the workers and payroll resulted in an underpayment of insurance coverage premiums of $197,623, officers mentioned.
Based on the DA’s workplace, in March 2020, Handakas and Vector allegedly repeated the underreporting of employees and payroll on its coverage software with one other insurance coverage supplier. The corporate claimed it had a payroll of $20,000, when the precise payroll based on state information was $106,452. The alleged underreporting resulted in a loss to the insurance coverage provider of $38,892, officers mentioned.
If convicted of the highest cost, Handakas faces a possible most of 5 to fifteen years in jail.