Inspector sentenced to 30 months for faking gas pipeline tests that cost utility $64 million

A federal judge on Wednesday sentenced a contracted safety inspector to 30 months in prison for fabricating test results on natural gas pipelines in Westchester County and New York City. The conviction resolves a fraud scheme that forced Con Edison to spend more than $64 million on corrective measures.

Michael Vasconcellos, 45, of Mahopac, pleaded guilty on April 21 to one count of conspiring to commit wire fraud. He faces three years of supervised release upon his release from prison and must pay over $64 million in restitution to the utility company.

U.S. Attorney Jamie McDonald stated that Vasconcellos created false records for safety tests intended to prevent gas leaks and explosions. "Instead of doing his job, the defendant left New Yorkers relying on critical safety checks that never happened," McDonald said. The prosecutor noted that the fraud cost the utility company more than $64 million in remediation.

Vasconcellos and a co-conspirator, Liam Treibert, were hired to inspect welds on pipelines installed between 2016 and 2023. These inspections were required to verify that the joints connecting pipeline segments did not contain defects. The welds had to pass non-destructive testing before the lines could be put into service.

The industry standard for this testing involved taking radiographs, commonly known as x-rays, of each weld. Technicians would examine the resulting films to identify any flaws. If a defect was found, the weld required repair before the pipeline could operate. Unrepaired defects could lead to gas leaks or explosions.

Prosecutors said Vasconcellos and Treibert used a practice called radaring to fake the inspections. This technique involved x-raying a single weld twice and presenting one set of images as if it came from a second, different weld. They submitted these fraudulent records to Con Edison to show that hundreds of welds had passed safety checks.

The scheme affected hundreds of welds on pipelines located in the Bronx and Westchester County. Con Edison paid for these inspections under the belief that the pipelines had passed critical safety tests. The utility company was deceived into thinking the lines were safe when, in fact, the specific welds had never been reviewed.

The case was handled by the White Plains Division of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York. The indictment detailed how the pair created fraudulent documentation to cover up the fact that they had not physically inspected the welds they claimed to have tested.