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New Windsor resident Joseph Liberto, 47, has been sentenced to 18 months in federal prison, followed by 12 months of home detention and three years of supervised release for a wire fraud conspiracy in connection with his company’s contract to perform work at USPS facilities.
The sentence was announced on Wednesday, June 15.
According to his plea agreement, while president and co-owner of Sierra Construction in Frederick, Liberto admitted that between 2013 and 2018, he contracted with facility maintenance company EMCOR-CSC to provide repair services to USPS facilities.
EMCOR acted as the clearing house responsible for receiving service calls for needed maintenance and repair work on its customers’ facilities, including the USPS, and assigning such work to service providers, such as Liberto and Sierra, prosecutors said.
Liberto admitted that he engaged in a scheme to defraud EMCOR and the USPS by fraudulently concealing Sierra’s use of subcontractors to carry out maintenance work it was assigned to perform, inflating the number of hours and cost of repairs, and providing false documents to EMCOR, in order to overcharge the USPS.
Sierra obtained more than $940,000 through these fraudulent over-billings.
In addition to his prison term, US District Judge Richard Bennett also ordered Liberto to pay $941,629.17 in restitution and a $100,000 fine, part of which must be paid before he reports to prison on Saturday, Sept. 10.
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