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Troiano was arrested in December 2015 and indicted in September 2016.
By Michael V. Cusenza
A Long Island contractor who was indicted last year for bilking three Rockaway families – whose homes were destroyed during Superstorm Sandy – out of more than $200,000 when they hired him to build new houses has reached a guilty-plea agreement with borough prosecutors and is set to be sentenced this Friday, Dec. 1.
While Queens District Attorney Richard Brown’s office did not respond to a request for plea information, a source with knowledge of at least part of the deal told The Forum that Andrew Troiano, 55, must pay at least $50,000 in restitution to the court, a far cry from what the aggrieved parties feel they are owed.
If the case went to trial, Troiano faced up to 15 years in prison.
Troiano and his Alt Design Construction and Consulting Inc., were arraigned in September 2016 on a 13-count indictment charging him with second- and third-degree grand larceny, second- and third-degree criminal possession of stolen property, first-degree scheme to defraud and a slew of other offenses.
Troiano originally was arrested in December 2015. He and his company were arraigned on a criminal complaint charging each of them with violating New York State Lien Law 79-A-1 (second- and third-degree misappropriation of funds of trust), second-, third- and fourth-degree grand larceny and first-degree scheme to defraud.
According to Brown, a forensic review of Alt Design’s bank records allegedly revealed that a total of $178,750 was received from the three Breezy Point homeowners and credited to Troiano’s account, but no payments were ever made to the subcontractors. In one case, Troiano hired Rockaway firm Malbro Construction as a subcontractor in November 2013 to install a concrete foundation and perform other services at a Graham Place residence. During the course of performing the job, Malbro allegedly received a partial payment of $13,000 from Alt Design, and that when the job was completed on or about April 30, 2014, Alt Design had an outstanding balance of $49,182 owed to Malbro. A demand by Malbro for payment from Alt Design allegedly resulted in no further payments, and that although Troiano never disputed what he owed, to date, neither he nor his company have paid down any of the outstanding balance.
Additionally, after a Breezy Point couple living on Hillside Avenue paid $55,000 to Alt Design for the ordering of their modular house, the money was used by Troiano and the company for unrelated matters, including cash withdrawals totaling more than $8,000, payments for unrelated jobs, payments to attorneys, Cablevision, Verizon Wireless, Goodyear Auto and purchases at various liquor stores and restaurants, Brown noted.
