Charged yesterday in indictments filed in federal court in Brooklyn were Zohrab Marashlian, 64, the former president of the civil division of Perini, which is headquartered in Massachusetts, and John Athanasiou, 63, the former director of purchasing for the firm's civil division, according to court documents.Attorneys for the two could not immediately be reached. Assistant U.S. Attorney Burton Ryan declined to comment.Company spokesman Tom Davies referred a reporter to a recent company filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission in which the company said it was in process of attempting to negotiate a civil settlement with the U.S. Attorney's office in connection with the investigation. Perini, which could lose government contracts if convicted of crimes in connection with the scheme, was not charged yesterday. In the SEC filing, the company said the investigation "concerns contracting between the company's civil division and disadvantaged, minority, and women-owned businesses in the New York City area construction industry."
Marashlian is scheduled to be arraigned on the charges later this month. Athanasiou is in Greece visiting his sick mother and will be arraigned later, officials said.
Among the projects that authorities say were not performed by minority-owned businesses as claimed: Parts of a West Side Highway project in Manhattan; the connector project involving the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and the Williamsburg Bridge and the Queens Boulevard/Honeywell Street Bridge project in Long Island City, according to the indictment.Several executives of minority-owned firms that participated in the scheme in return for kickbacks have pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing.
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