A Manhattan construction company, KEP Construction LLC, has pleaded guilty to grand larceny and scheme to defraud after prosecutors say it withheld $67,275 in pay from 10 drywall workers. The company received more than $1.3 million for work on several buildings, including work at a 23-story high-rise at 270 West 96th Street. Kendis Paul, who owns KEP Construction, pleaded not guilty following an investigation that began after workers sent repeated text messages pleading for wages. The workers were owed the money for work performed between September 2023 and February 2024.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg announced last week that nearly $70,000 in stolen wages had been returned to the construction workers following the conclusion of the investigation, according to a post from Alvin Bragg
. Court records show the 10 drywall workers, all immigrants and non-native English speakers, were individually owed sums ranging from $2,600 to $11,000, according to
Upper West Side Patch
Paul was indicted on January 9, 2025, and KEP Construction ultimately faced two felonies — grand larceny and scheme to defraud — before the company pleaded guilty to both. Paul pleaded not guilty.
Bounced Checks and Pleas for Rent Money
KEP Construction received more than $1.3 million from a general contractor for work on several buildings, per the Manhattan District Attorney's Office. Workers were sometimes paid with checks that later bounced or received no payment at all, and Paul also refused to pay them for overtime work, according to the seed account from Bragg's office.
The human cost of the alleged scheme showed up in the evidence itself. Text messages submitted in the case captured workers pleading with Paul for their earnings — one worker wrote that they were out of food and unable to pay rent, as reported by The Chief. Paul reportedly told workers he would keep them updated and eventually pay them, but did not follow through.
How Grassroots Organizing Triggered the Case
The criminal case traces back to advocacy by the Workers' Justice Project, which assisted workers in filing wage-theft claims with the New York State Department of Labor; a July Road to Justice caravan also took place at a former Upper West Side worksite, according to Documented NY. That campaign against KEP Construction was part of a broader push in which the organization filed wage-theft claims against five other employers involving 14 additional workers owed more than $57,000 — a pattern the same outlet's reporting situates this case within.
A Dedicated Worker Protection Unit
Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg created the office's Worker Protection Unit in February 2023, per Fisher Phillips LLP. The unit has recovered and disbursed more than $1.3 million in stolen wages to more than four dozen workers, The Chief Leader reports — part of a broader enforcement push that has also touched cases like the recent guilty plea in a $325K electrical wage theft case.
Wage theft of this kind is far from isolated in New York City's construction industry. Research cited by city officials and labor advocates indicates that an estimated 2.1 million New Yorkers lose approximately $3.2 billion to wage theft, as detailed in Hoodline's earlier coverage of a wage-theft reporting tool. The workers in this case were immigrants and non-native English speakers who went unpaid.
