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Floral Park man to fight conviction in OTB scam

By Adam Kramer

The owner of a Floral Park, L.I. construction firm was sentenced to 37 months in jail for defrauding the Off-Track Betting Corporation of more than $200,000, the commissioner of the city Department of Investigation announced Friday.

John Gil, 46, of 104 Marshall Ave. in Floral Park was convicted Feb. 5 of money laundering, conspiracy and mail fraud after a two- week jury trial, said Edward Kuriansky, commissioner of the DOI.

He was sentenced to more than three years in jail Friday and three years of supervised release for bilking over $200,000 from the OTB by Federal Judge Raymond Dearie in Brooklyn, he said.

Kuriansky said his office began to look into Gil and his construction company after receiving an anonymous tip that he had been submitting inflated and fictitious invoices to OTB for work on the installation of heating and air-conditioning equipment at its sites around the city.

“Gil, the sole shareholder of John Gil Construction Inc. was found guilty this past February of submitting inflated estimates and inflated or fictitious invoices for steam and hot water heating, ventilating and air-conditioning equipment at various installations in all five boroughs,” Kuriansky said.

Tom Liotti, Gil’s lawyer from Nassau County, said he was in the p the process of appealing the conviction and there were many legal issues in the case that he plans to pursue in the appeal. In particular, he contended that a memo dated Jan. 28, 1997 from Linda Bradford, the chief contract officer for OTB, who has since died, would exonerate his client.

He said Gil was out on bail and has a surrender date of October, but they will have filed the appeal by then.

Gil said he received an unfair trial because the judge would not allow his lawyers to present expert witnesses who would have exonerated him. In addition, he claimed the government hid evidence from his lawyers.

The Bradford memo will be the main point of Gil’s appeal because it will “impeach all of the OTB witnesses” who said Gil did not have the authority to do what he did, Liotti said.

“We said he did have the authority,” he said, “and the memo supports it.”

The evidence Gil and his lawyer are alluding to is a memo written by Bradford to Steven Sloan, who works in the OTB legal department. Liotti said the memo showed Gil had the authority to do the work on the heating and air-conditioning systems.

Gil and Liotti filed a so-called Brady Motion with the court, which claims the government hid or failed to provide in a timely fashion information that would exculpate Gil of any wrongdoing.

Dearie denied the Brady Motion at Gil’s sentencing Friday.

The judge also told Gil to make restitution payments to OTB of $110,626. He entered a judgment of forfeiture against Gil for an additional $102,000, which is the amount the judge calculated Gil owed OTB.

“The investigation disclosed that Gil, in 1996 and 1997, entered into two contracts with OTB to furnish and install steam and hot water heating, ventilating and air-conditioning equipment at various locations around the city,” Kuriansky said. “The contracts permitted the maximum payments to Gil’s construction company of approximately $1.1 million.”

He said the jury in the February trial concluded that various subcontractors and vendors — including a Long Island City rigging company and sheet metal fabricating companies in Long Island City and Freeport L.I. — under Gil’s control gave him inflated estimates and invoices, which he submitted to the OTB for payment.

The jury also found that Taylor Walker, a friend and attorney of Gil, received at least one OTB payment, which was deposited into his escrow account, Kuriansky said. Walker later used some of the money in the account to buy Gil a $250,000 boat, Kuriansky said.

In its guilty verdict the jury decided that Gil’s 40-foot cabin cruiser “Diamond Girl” was purchased through money earned from criminal activity and was turned over to the government, he said.

Reach reporter Adam Kramer by e-mail at Timesledgr@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 157.