On February 19, 2025, a court sentenced a construction company owner to 48 months’ incarceration and to pay more than $55 million in restitution. Also, he will forfeit real estate and cash/bank accounts. He pleaded guilty to a wire fraud conspiracy, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and a willful violation of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration Act for causing the death of an employee (18 U.S.C. §§ 371, 1343; 29 U.S.C. § 666(e)).
He created and operated several shell construction companies, including one named Domingos 54 Construction, Inc. He used Domingos 54 to provide workers, including undocumented aliens, with construction jobs. However, he failed to secure the required workers’ compensation insurance coverage for these employees by falsifying the number of workers for which he sought coverage in worker’s compensation insurance applications. In addition, he failed to pay any federal employment taxes on the wages that these workers earned during the course of the scheme between 2018 and 2022.
He failed to disclose the number of workers he had. Had he properly disclosed the number of workers, he would have paid an additional $22.7 million+ in premiums. Additionally, he failed to pay to the IRS over $33.7 million in federal employment taxes on those workers’ wages.
Between February and July 2019, investigators with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued six citations to Domingos 54 for failure to provide fall protection to workers. Even after being cited for these violations, he continued to ignore OSHA requirements. In March 2020, Pita assigned a worker and three other carpenters to install sheeting on the roof of a residential home in windy conditions without providing the required fall-protection gear or ensuring its use. As a result, one of the workers was blown off the roof and died from his injuries.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation, Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation, Homeland Security Investigations, Florida Department of Financial Services’ Bureau of Insurance Fraud-Criminal Investigations, and the Department of Labor’s Office of Inspector General conducted the investigation.