Guilty plea accepted for substandard concrete

[unhappycamper]

Guilty plea accepted for substandard concrete
By Sean P. Murphy, Globe Staff | August 28, 2007


A federal judge yesterday accepted a guilty plea from Aggregate Industries NE Inc. for supplying 5,700 truckloads of substandard concrete on the Big Dig and accepted a $50 million settlement negotiated between the company and the US and state governments.

The plea sealed the deal announced last month by US Attorney Michael J. Sullivan and Attorney General Martha Coakley. Under its terms, Aggregate avoided being barred from bidding on future work for the governments, the majority of the company's business, in exchange for paying $50 million in criminal fines and civil sanctions.

Most of that money will be used to fund an endowment to pay for future maintenance of the $15 billion Big Dig, according to Fred M. Wyshak Jr., the federal prosecutor who headed the investigation.

Roberto Huet, president of Aggregate, entered the plea on behalf of the corporation, the region's largest concrete supplier. Judge Joseph L. Tauro then imposed the $50 million penalty as sentence.

According to Wyshak, it was Aggregate's policy to provide concrete for the Big Dig that did not meet contract specifications."

"Leftover concrete on some occasions was mixed with new concrete and used on the Big Dig," Wyshak said in court. "On other occasions, entire truckloads of concrete rejected as too old or having too much water was used."


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