Contra Costa DA: Fraud, conspiracy was rampant at Concord construction company

Jun. 26—Contra Costa prosecutors have charged five people from two Bay Area construction companies with fraud and conspiracy charges, District Attorney's Office officials said.

All five were arraigned Friday and pleaded not guilty, DA spokesperson Ted Asregadoo said Monday.

The charges filed in March arose from two separate complaints, according to a statement from Asregadoo.

Gilbert Guiotti, 60, and Christopher Vieira, 62, were charged with operating Centrox Construction, of San Bruno, as a shell company to route unlawful payments to unlicensed subcontractors for three members of a Concord company, according to Asregadoo and court documents.

Those three members — 57-year-old Candido Silva; 42-year-old Itamar De Morais Jr. and 42-year-old Irma Ruiz-Alarcon — were from Atlas Pavers and are alleged to have paid more than $12 million to unlicensed and misclassified construction crews from 2016-19, according to court documents.

Prosecutors allege the trio misclassified workers in order to avoid paying the workers' compensation insurance, payroll taxes and insurance premiums and also conspired to go around the State Compensation Insurance Fund to avoid a state audit of the company's books.

Guiotti and Vieira have been charged with the unlawful use of their state contractors license to aid and abet payments from companies advertising themselves to consumers as licensed contractors to their unlicensed and misclassified sub-contractor labor crews, Asregadoo said.

That complaint also alleges that Centrox, the San Bruno shell company, received a small percentage of money for routing millions of dollars in payroll funds to unlicensed and misclassified subcontractor crews while underreporting the workers' total compensation amounts to the SCIF.

The defendants are next due in court on Aug. 11 to set a date for a future appearance.

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