Third Man Pleads Guilty In Success Village Embezzlement Scheme

Number three with more to come. News release from Connecticut U.S. Attorney:

RICHARD J. MESSINA, 54, of Trumbull, pleaded guilty today before U.S. District Judge Vernon D. Oliver in Hartford to an offense stemming from his participation in an embezzlement conspiracy involving Success Village Apartments, Inc., located in Bridgeport and Stratford.

The announcement was made by David X. Sullivan, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut; P.J. O’Brien, Special Agent in Charge of the New Haven Division of the FBI; Thomas Demeo, Special Agent in Charge of IRS Criminal Investigation in New England; and Justin Page, Acting Inspector in Charge of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, Boston Division.

According to court documents and statements made in court, Success Village Apartments, Inc. (“SVA”) is a residential cooperative located in Bridgeport and Stratford.  SVA comprises 96 separate buildings containing 924 residential units.  Messina and Carmine Gentile own Umbrella Mechanical LLC (“Umbrella”), a New Jersey-registered company, and Messina owns RJM Mechanical (“RJM”), a Connecticut-registered Company, businesses that provided commercial and residential plumbing, heating, and air conditioning services.  In approximately June 2022, Umbrella began providing plumbing services to SVA, including work on the piping and boilers that provided heat and hot water to SVA residents.  In approximately July 2024, RJM began providing plumbing services related to heat and hot water to SVA.  SVA’s general manager, Charles Pitcher, referred Messina and Umbrella to SVA as a plumbing contractor.

Between approximately June 2022 and September 2024, Messina, Gentile, Pitcher, and others, including an individual identified as “Person-2” in the Criminal Information charging Messina, engaged in an embezzlement conspiracy through which vendors, including Umbrella and RJM, would submit fraudulent invoices and requests for payment to SVA, either for work that was not performed or at artificially inflated prices that overstated the amount of money owed by SVA.  Pitcher and Person-2 agreed that, in exchange for the vendors’ receipt of work and payments from SVA, the vendors would divert a percentage of the payments received from SVA to Pitcher and Person-2.  Messina, Gentile, and their co-conspirators agreed that, in exchange for Umbrella’s and RJM’s receipt of work and payments from SVA, Umbrella and RJM would divert approximately 20 percent of those payments to Pitcher and Person-2.

Messina, Gentile, and others prepared and caused to be prepared fraudulent invoices and requests for payment to SVA that were not the result of a competitive bidding process, contained objectively unreasonable markups for certain goods and services, contained charges for goods and services that were not rendered, contained amounts to be billed to SVA that were chosen by Pitcher and Person-2, and were otherwise fraudulently inflated, including by not accounting for the money that was remitted to Pitcher and Person-2.

SVA paid Umbrella approximately $2,631,769.71 and RJM approximately $99,414.11 during the conspiracy, $546,000 of which was diverted to Pitcher and Person-2.

Messina pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, an offense that carries a maximum term of imprisonment of 20 years.  As part of his plea agreement, he has agreed to a forfeiture money judgment in the amount of at least $750,000 and agreed to pay restitution in the amount of at least $1,500,000.  He is released on a $100,000 bond pending sentencing.

Gentile and Pitcher previously pleaded guilty and await sentencing.

This ongoing investigation is being conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation Division, and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.  The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul A. Riley.