Jul. 27--Federal and state transportation authorities are investigating three Minnesota trucking companies for allegedly filing falsified documents for their work on three major metro-area highways: Interstate Hwy. 494 and Hwys. 212 and 61.
The Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) declined to comment on the investigation, which came to light in three search warrants unsealed this week in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis.
But according to a sworn statement by Christopher Smith, a special agent with the U.S. Department of Transportation Inspector General's Office in Chicago, a Farmington company and two South St. Paul companies submitted false trucking reports, haul slips and lease agreements, and underpaid some truck drivers working on the project.
Smith filed the affidavits to obtain search warrants for the offices of Willis Trucking Inc., of Farmington, Koehnen Landscaping and Trucking Inc. and K&M Trucking of IGH Inc., both of South St. Paul, as well as the home of David Koehnen and Kimberly Meyer of Inver Grove Heights. Koehnen incorporated the two South St. Paul companies; Meyer was listed as office manager and president of K&M Trucking.
Smith said enough evidence exists to suspect Koehnen, Meyer and Willis Trucking operator Michael Willis of conspiracy to defraud the government, making false statements and mail fraud.
In a brief interview Wednes- day, Meyer denied any wrongdoing and said she was cooperating with investigators. She said K&M works for Willis Trucking as subcontractors. "It's a mess. I don't even understand anything that's going on," Meyer said. Koehnen and Willis couldn't be reached for comment.
Contractors on federally funded projects must pay prevailing wages. A truck driver working for K&M Trucking complained to MnDOT labor investigators that he was paid just $11 an hour for work on the $243.8 million Hwy. 212 project, Smith wrote. Prevailing wages and benefits for the job would have been $30.90 an hour, and $42.60 per hour for overtime.
K&M reported that the driver was an independent truck owner and certified that it had paid the driver $63 an hour, when in fact the driver was an employee of the company, Smith wrote.
Similarly, MnDOT labor investigators said they found a driver on the $137.6 million I-494 project who was employed by K&M at $11 an hour. But Michael Willis had signed a form certifying the driver as an owner-operator and submitted documents saying he was paid $62 an hour, Smith wrote.
On the $46.8 million Hwy. 61 project, an employee of Koehnen Landscaping and Trucking complained that he was paid $13 and $14 an hour for work done in 2003 and 2004, Smith wrote. He said the driver "was ordered by Dave Koehnen or Kimberly Meyer to sign haul slips indicating that he was the owner of DB Truckin, Inc." MnDOT verified that he didn't own the truck, Smith said, and the Secretary of State's Office had no record of a company by that name.
In addition, a former Koehnen Landscaping and Trucking driver admitted to submitting forged weight tickets to Willis Trucking, Smith said.
Meyer said that when Willis Trucking hired K&M and Koehnen Landscaping and Trucking as subcontractors, it provided lease documents so that the company's truck drivers could work as owner-operators. "That's where supposedly the difference in the money comes from, because we take off insurance and fuel and maintenance, and then we pay them the difference," she said.
"Apparently it's not legal. But I got it from Willis Trucking," Meyer said. "I do these reports as Mike [Willis] tells us. I just do what I'm told by our broker."
