Regional Scaffolding bigs get 5 years probation and $1.9M restitution in tax fraud

By LAURA ITALIANO

One of the biggest area scaffolding companies, Regional Scaffolding, must submit to a court-approved financial monitor and its owners must pay $1.9 million to resolve a massive tax cheat scheme, a Manhattan judge ruled today.

Owners Paul Mazzucca, 43, of Valley Cottage, NY, and Lawrence Blinn, 51, of Upper Nyack, NY, each must also serve five years probation, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Marc Whiten ruled in sentencing the men today on their May plea to felony charges of filing false tax returns.

Their Bronx-based scaffolding company has made tens of millions of dollars off state and city contracts, including at the now-demolished, 9/11-damaged Deutsche Bank building.

In addition, Blinn is the former president and Mazzucca a former executive of the now-defunct John Galt Corp., the contracting company convicted earlier this month of reckless endangerment in the Deutsche Bank manslaughter trial.

In the scaffolding company tax case, Mazzucca and Blinn had been charged with under-reporting the company's income and fudging paperwork to cover for paying workers less than union wages and failing to withhold the appropriate taxes.

Had they been convicted of the original charges against them, they faced up to four years prison.