Queens Contractor Jailed For Bribing Con Ed Supervisors: Feds

LONG ISLAND CITY, QUEENS -- A once-prominent Queens contractor is behind bars bribing supervisors at Consolidated Edison of New York with hundreds of thousands in cash and checks to secure lucrative contracts with the utilities provider, federal prosecutors announced Wednesday.

Rodolfo Quiambao, the 73-year-old former head of engineering and electrical design firm Rudell & Associates, pleaded guilty in March 2016 to paying off Con Ed managers for years to lock in exclusive jobs and other perks from the local utilities giant. He was sentenced on Tuesday to four years in prison.

Quiambao, whose firm was based in Long Island City, is the latest to be prosecuted after a government investigation into bribery and kickback schemes at Con Ed, said U.S. Eastern District Attorney Richard Donoghue. Since 2008, 13 supervisors and three contractors with the utilities provider have been convicted.

In a scheme that dates all the way back to 2000, Quiambo regularly paid Con Ed supervisors discretely through cash and check in exchange for work - including lucrative "soul source" contracts - with the provider, according to court filings.

Quiambao hid his bribe payments to Con Ed supervisors for years by writing them off as business deductions on his company's tax returns, court records state.

He was arrested in June 2015 on charges of federal programs bribery and tax evasion. As part of his guilty plea in 2016, Quiambao agreed to fork over $1 million in criminal proceeds.

In addition to prison time, he was also sentenced to pay a $125,000 find and more than $3.5 million in restitution to the IRS.

Lead photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images.

Caption: A Con Edison power plant located in a Brooklyn neighborhood directly across from Manhattan.