Toms River Contractor Admits Underpaying Workers, Faking Records

TRENTON, NJ – A construction contractor from Toms River has admitted falsifying payroll records on a government contract to cover up the fact that he was shorting his employees to the tune of more than $200,000 under the Prevailing Wage Act, the state attorney general's office announced Wednesday.

Albert Chwedczuk, 45, of Toms River, pleaded guilty to a second-degree charge of false contract payment claims through his company, Bella Group LLC, before Superior Court Judge Morris G. Smith in Camden County, Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal said.

Under the plea agreement, the state will recommend that Chwedczuk be sentenced to three years in state prison. He must pay a total of up to $200,407 in restitution to his workers. His sentencing is scheduled for Sept. 6.

It is believed that many of the Chwedczuk’s employees were undocumented immigrants and he took advantage of their status, Grewal's office said.

Chwedczuk had been barred in 2014 from obtaining or performing work on public contracts because he had previously violated the Prevailing Wage Act, which requires contractors to pay the "prevailing wage" on those contracts. He operated Ren Construction LLC and Real Construction LLC at the time.

In 2015 he created Bella Group LLC to obtain a public subcontract worth $400,000 to provide masonry work for the Cooper Camden Student Housing project on South Broadway in Camden. He then submitted certified payrolls containing false information to the general contractor on a weekly basis in 2015 and 2016, state investigators found. He also instructed several employees to provide false information to an investigator from the state Department of Labor and Workforce Development regarding the wages they were receiving.

Investigators found Chwedczuk knowingly failed to pay his employees up to $200,407 in wages on the contract, Grewal's office said.

"When contractors receive taxpayer dollars for a public project, they promise to pay prevailing wages to employees for all their hard work," Grewal said. "But this employer cheated his workers and hoarded public funds for his own enrichment. This case is a message to all employers that we will not tolerate contractors underpaying their workers and lying about it."

"This contractor’s actions were in complete defiance of our laws and principles, and that is why the state recommended a significant prison sentence," Labor Commissioner Robert Asaro-Angelo said.

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