NYC Contractor Admits Underpaying Workers

NEW YORK (AP) -- An electrical subcontractor on the John F. Kennedy International Airport AirTrain project and on the Staten Island Railway has pleaded guilty to charges of underpaying six employees by more than $200,000.

Atlas Electric Contractors Inc. supervisor John Mari Jr. pleaded guilty Wednesday in Manhattan to offering a false instrument for filing.

The 51-year-old Staten Island resident admits he filed documents from 2005 through 2007 saying he paid the employees proper wages when in fact he underpaid them by $211,000.

Prosecutors say Mari's plea agreement requires him to pay the workers what he owes them.

Atlas Electric was a subcontractor on public works projects for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey including the Kennedy airport rail link.

How do you manage to underpay workers that much? Oh, wait, I think I know...