Hurricane Recovery Wire Fraud Scheme Lands Former Freeport Resident 4 Year Jail Sentence: Feds

CENTRAL ISLIP, NY — The owner of a Freeport design company was sentenced to four years in jail this week after he pleaded guilty to defrauding homeowners whose homes were damaged by Hurricane Sandy, officials said.

According to U.S. Attorneys, San Antonio, TX resident and former Freeport resident Alexander Almaraz pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy to commit wire fraud in September of 2024. Prosecutors said Almaraz entered his company, Design Concepts Group LLC (DCG), into contracts with homeowners who qualified for New York Rising (NYR) funding — a program that made state funding available to homeowners to pay for damages caused by the storm — in which he agreed to lift the homes onto temporary supports so that construction workers could remove the homes' damaged foundations and replace them with new ones. Once the new foundations were in place, prosecutors said, the contracts specified that Almaraz would lower the homes back down onto the new footing.

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Between October of 2015 and June of 2019, prosecutors said Almaraz agreed to life at least 20 homes whose owners qualified for NYR funding, and was paid about $2.5 million for doing so. As part of his plans, prosecutors said Almaraz convinced many of these homeowners to move out of the homes and pay him rent to live elsewhere, "all the while neglecting their projects and causing greater loss and suffering."

Prosecutors said Almaraz did not use the homeowners' money to do the work he had agreed to perform, instead spending it on credit card bills, land in Kansas City, MO, and luxury cars including a Lamborghini, a Porsche and a Jaguar. In total, prosecutors said this scheme led to the loss of over $1.5 million from both NYR and individual victims.

"Although years have passed since Hurricane Sandy caused historic damage to our district, the defendant's victims still feel the emotional and financial pain caused by his selfish crimes," United States Attorney Joseph Nocella said. "Today's sentence holds Almaraz accountable for using vital recovery funds to fund a lavish lifestyle while his customers were deprived of their homes and suffering emotionally and financially. For this crime of greed, it is fitting that the defendant's home will be a federal prison."

For her part, Donnelly highlighted the specific nature of the damage caused by Sandy: coastal communities, like Almaraz's former home of Freeport, were hit particularly hard.

"Hurricane Sandy ravaged waterfront communities across Nassau County, and in the aftermath, this defendant capitalized on the loss and pain of nearly two dozen homeowners trying to rebuild just to fatten his own wallet," Donnelly said. "In his greed, Almaraz made promises he had no intention of keeping and stole more than a million dollars in recovery funds earmarked to help residents who suffered total devastation in the storm. To add insult to injury, while the construction on his victims' homes remained unfinished, Almaraz was out buying land for himself with their funds."