BROOKLYN, NY-Construction giant Lend Lease (US)Construction LMB Inc. has entered into a deferredprosecution agreement with federal prosecutors, and will pay up to$56 million in penalties after admitting that it fraudentlyoverbilled public and private clients over a 10-year period,according to documents filed Tuesday in US District Court here. Ina related case, James Abadie, the former principalof Lend Lease’s New York office, pleaded guilty to charges ofconspiring to commit mail and wire fraud in connection with theoverbilling, and faces up to 20 years in prison. Abadie’s attorney,Stephen E. Kaufman, did not respond toGlobeSt.com’s request for comment by deadline Wednesday.

Lend Lease’s attorney, Steven Reiss ofWeil Gotshal & Manges, referred GlobeSt.com’sinquiry to a spokeswoman for his client. In an emailed statement,Robert McNamara, CEO of the Americas region forLend Lease, says the company accepts responsibility “for whathappened in the past and have agreed to continue to makerestitution to the affected clients. We are satisfied that theinvestigation is now resolved and we are looking forward tocontinuing our commitment to projects in New York City.” A releasefrom the firm says it has fully cooperated with the federalgovernment since 2009, when the US Attorney for the EasternDistrict of New York launched an investigation.

Lend Lease, formerly known as Bovis Lend Lease, served asconstruction manager on a variety of large-scale projects over thepast decade, including the building of Citi Field,the renovation of Grand Central Terminal and thedeconstruction of the former Deutsche Bank tower at 130Liberty St. in Lower Manhattan. Between 1999 and 2009,court documents say, the firm “devised a scheme to defraud federal,state and local government contracting agencies, as well as privateclients,” by billing them for hours that were not actually workedby its labor foremen.