Feds Probing Bovis Lend Lease For Padding Bills

Bovis Lend Lease, which is one of the largest construction firms in the nation, and has worked on numerous high profile jobs in New York City, including Citifield and the 9/11 Memorial and was part of the consortium of companies that helped clear the debris from Ground Zero is being investigated by the feds for padding bills.

Federal prosecutors are investigating whether a contractor doing billions of dollars in business in the city overbilled for work on projects including the Sept. 11 memorial and the New York Mets' new stadium, officials familiar with the probe said Friday.

Prosecutors are looking into whether Bovis Lend Lease padded its billing reports with expenses for unworked hours, the two officials told The Associated Press. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is in its early stages.

The projects include the memorial, the $800 million Citi Field stadium that opened in April, a New York University hospital project, a mall in Queens and a former bank tower being dismantled across from ground zero, one of the officials said.

Bovis said in a statement Friday it's "fully cooperating" with the investigation by Brooklyn's U.S. Attorney's office and declined comment.

"We were unaware of any investigation or wrongdoing," the Mets said in a statement. "We take these allegations seriously and are looking into the matter."

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the World Trade Center site and is in charge of building the memorial, said its inspector general's office "is actively engaged in the investigation.

Bovis worked on projects whose worth was in the billions, and these investigations may seriously put a crimp in construction at Ground Zero if Bovis is found to have engaged in wrongdoing.

Bovis is also engaged in the deconstruction of the former Deutsche Bank building, which is now scheduled to occur by the end of the year, long after it was originally scheduled to be demolished because of a deadly fire and multiple safety violations at the site.