A Beverly Farms bigwig will cool his heels behind bars after being nailed for a payroll fraud that lined his pockets with millions, officials announced. Sixty-two-year-old Frank Loconte was hammered with a 20-month prison sentence and a heavy order to cough up over $4.5 million in restitution, after pleading guilty to a shady multi-million dollar scheme involving skimming from his workers and stiffing Uncle Sam.
Loconte, former president of NER Construction Management Corporation, played fast and loose with overtime hours, hiding them from union benefit funds and not withholding payroll taxes. He pleaded guilty in September 2023 to one count of mail fraud, and one count of failing to pay taxes, according to a U.S. Attorney's Office release. In addition to his time in the clink, Loconte faces three years of supervised release, and must shell out a $15,000 fine.
The construction honcho's deception stretched from 2009 to 2022, where his company employed union workers, and was sworn under collective bargaining agreements to cough up benefit contributions based on worked hours. But instead of following the rules, Loconte chose to pay out undeclared cash for overtime and failed to submit accurate reports to union funds and the IRS, robbing employees of over $1 million and evading more than $3 million in payroll taxes.
Loconte's personal piggy bank, funded by NER's accounts, was filled with expenditures for luxury cars, property taxes, swanky home improvements, and golf memberships, instead of paying employment taxes, said Acting United States Attorney Joshua S. Levy. Special agents from the IRS, FBI and the Department of Labor swung down hard on Loconte, who evidently thought he could dupe the federal government and his hardworking employees without facing the hammer of justice.
With Frank Loconte's sentencing, the message is clear: defrauding workers and tax evasion are high stakes games where the house always wins eventually. The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Laura J. Kaplan of the Criminal Division, with the announcement coming from a slew of law enforcement's top dogs committed to sniffing out corruption and protecting the rights of workers.
