A Garden City man has been charged with insurance fraud for allegedly underreporting payroll to insurance companies and cheating them out of $235,000 in premiums.
Vassilios Handakas, also known as William Handakas and Bill Handakas, 60, was arraigned before Judge Jaclene A. Agazarian on charges of second-degree insurance fraud (a Class C felony), third-degree insurance fraud (a Class D felony) and Workers’ Compensation Law 52(1)a & 52(1)d Effect of Failure to Secure Compensation.
Vector Structural Corporation and Handakos entered into a contract for a workers’ compensation policy with an insurance company for coverage between March 2019 and March 2020. In the application, the company allegedly indicated that it employed two masons with an annual payroll of $50,000 a year. Records the company and Handakas filed with the state, however, indicated that Vector had 13 employees during that time frame and a payroll of $625,466. The underreporting of the employees and payroll resulted in an underpayment of insurance premiums of $197,623.
In March 2020, Handakas and Vector allegedly repeated the underreporting of workers and payroll on its policy application with another insurance provider. The company claimed it had a payroll of $20,000, when the actual payroll, according to state records, was $106,452. The alleged underreporting resulted in a loss to the insurance carrier of $38,892.
Handakas surrendered to NCDA detective investigators on March 28, 2024. Handakas was released on his own recognizance and is due back in court on April 10, 2024. If convicted of the top charge, he could face a potential maximum sentence of 5 to 15 years in prison.
“When an employer makes misrepresentations about the number of employees at their company and their payroll figures, they unfairly impact honest employers who bear the burden of insurance fraud in the form of higher premiums and workers who may suffer an injury just to find they have no protection through worker’s compensation coverage,” said Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly. “This defendant left his workers exposed and allegedly cheated insurance companies out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
“Employers must provide workers’ compensation insurance for all employees on payroll,” said New York State Inspector General Lucy Lang. “Failure to do so imperils a critical safety net that so many hardworking New Yorkers and their families need and deserve. My office will investigate and hold accountable anyone who would compromise this core commitment to workers.”