Contractor Sentenced For Trying To Bribe OSHA Official At Philly Site

PHILADELPHIA — A Philadelphia contractor has been hit with prison time after being convicted of trying to bribe an OSHA official.

United States Attorney Jacqueline C. Romero said that Tony Ren, 59, of Philadelphia, was sentenced to three months in prison, one year of supervised release, and was ordered to pay a $50,000 fine after being convicted of two counts of bribery.

In December 2021, Ren was convicted at trial of attempting to bribe an OSHA Compliance Safety and Health Officer so the officer would not report safety violations at a construction site Ren operated, and to eliminate previous safety violations and corresponding fines.

In October 2017, the OSHA officer conducted an inspection of a worksite on Arch Street in response to an imminent hazard report.

During the inspection, they saw numerous OSHA standard violations, including debris in passageways, electrical issues, holes in the floor, and gas tanks with broken pressure gauges.

As the evidence presented at trial showed, on two separate dates in November 2017, Ren offered $1,500 cash bribes to the official in exchange for the official falsifying the inspection results, deleting previous violations from OSHA’s computer system, and agreeing not to report the violations so that the defendant could avoid the substantial penalties that would follow.