Defendant Awarded Millions in Contracts to Upgrade City Schools;
Allegedly Submitted Faked Payroll to Pocket Cash; Nearly a Dozen Victims Cheated
Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz, along with the New York City Department of
Investigation Commissioner Margaret Garnett, announced today that a Queens County grand jury has
indicted a business owner and his company, Laser Electrical Contracting Inc., of grand larceny, failure to
pay prevailing wages, scheme to defraud and other crimes for underpaying employees assigned to work on
public works projects in New York City public schools. From 2014 through 2018, the defendants had
contracts with the New York City School Construction Authority and the New York City Department of
Education worth millions to do electrical work in City schools.
District Attorney Katz said, “This business owner allegedly bilked his hard-working employees out
of more than $1.5 million in wages. Thanks to a number of employees coming forward to report the
alleged wrong-doing, the matter was investigated and 11 workers in all were allegedly cheated. The
defendant will be held accountable for this alleged malfeasance.”
Commissioner Garnett said, “Workers on government projects must be fairly compensated for their
labor and paid the prevailing wage. These defendants underpaid employees through a variety of schemes,
including falsely inflating the hourly rate paid, failing to pay benefits, and then submitting hundreds of
materially false certified payroll reports to the New York City School Construction Authority and the City
Department of Education, resulting in the theft of more than $1.5 million in workers’ wages, according to
the charges and court documents. This kind of criminal behavior is a priority for DOI because it exploits
workers, wastes government money, and harms competing businesses who are playing by the rules. DOI
thanks the Queens District Attorney’s Office for its partnership on this matter.”
The Queens District Attorney’s Office identified the defendant as Jagdeep Deol, 36, of 262nd Street
in Glen Oaks, Queens, and his company Laser Electrical Contracting Inc. The defendant is charged in a
66-count indictment with grand larceny in the second degree, failure to pay prevailing wages, scheme to
defraud in the first degree, offering a false instrument for filing in the first degree and falsifying business
records in the first degree. The defendant was arraigned yesterday before Queens Supreme Court Justice
Barry S. Kron who released the defendant on his own recognizance and ordered him to return to court on
April 6, 2020. If convicted, Deol faces a minimum of probation to up to 15 years in prison.
According to the charges, said District Attorney Katz, the defendant had numerous public works
contracts with the SCA and the DOE and additionally worked as a subcontractor for the SCA. For the
time period of 2014 through 2018, under all the contracts the defendant failed to pay at least 11 employees
the proper prevailing wage totaling more than $1.5 million.
Continuing, according to the charges, said DA Katz, in February 2018 a number of employees
reported that they had allegedly been underpaid. An investigation followed with reviews of payroll records
and interviews with employees. It was determined that the workers’ checks were missing a sum totaling
more than $1.5 million
The DA added that, according to the charges, the defendant and the company submitted hundreds
of payment requisitions that had been falsified.
The investigation was conducted by Detective Robert Magrino of the New York City Police
Department’s Asset Forfeiture Unit, under the supervision of Sergeant Adam Bruno, Lieutenant Alfred
Batelli, and under the overall supervision of Assistant Chief Christopher McCormack, Commanding
Officer-Criminal Enterprise Division
It should be noted that an indictment is merely an accusation and that a defendant is presumed
innocent until proven guilty.
