A former salesman at Bayway Lumber, a Linden company that sold commercial and industrial products to numerous public and private entities was sentenced to 12 months in prison for conspiring to defraud customers and lying to a federal grand jury.
Adam Martignetti, 44, of South River, previously pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Peter G. Sheridan to Counts 1 and 6 of an indictment charging him with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and making false declarations before a grand jury, according to a statement provided by Acting U.S. Attorney William E. Fitzpatrick. Martignetti was sentenced on Oct. 12 in Trenton federal court.
According to documents filed in this case and statements made in court, Martignetti admitted that from 2011- 13, he conspired with others to defraud certain Bayway Lumber customers by providing free items to the customers’ employees and then recouping the cost of the items – plus additional revenue for Bayway Lumber – by overbilling the customers, according to the statement. Martignetti also admitted supplying lower-quality, less expensive plywood to a customer while still charging it for the more expensive, higher-quality plywood that it had ordered.
Martignetti gave a variety of personal items to employees of Bayway Lumber’s customers, including Amtrak, the City of Elizabeth and the Plainfield Board of Education. These items included a laptop, several iPads, a camera and sound system, patio furniture and other merchandise, according to the statement. Under the supervision of Robert Dattilo, president and partial owner of Bayway Lumber, Martignetti then overbilled those customers. Dattilo kept a running tally of how much Martignetti and others fraudulently billed customers, which many at Bayway Lumber referred to as the “Bank,” to ensure that Bayway Lumber recovered the full cost of the free items, according to the statement.
Martignetti also conspired to provide one Bayway Lumber customer, Consolidated Edison Co. of New York Inc. (Con Edison), with lower-quality wood than it ordered and paid for. When Con Edison ordered plywood that had been graded to meet a certain set of specifications, Martignetti, at Dattilo’s instruction, routinely sent plywood that was of a lower grade or not graded at all, including “reject” plywood, all while still charging Con Edison for the higher-quality plywood, according to the statement.
Martignetti also admitted giving false testimony before a federal grand jury while appearing as a witness under oath in March 2013, including stating that he had never given Bayway Lumber items to City of Elizabeth employees for free, and that Elizabeth was never charged for items that were for Elizabeth employees’ personal use, according to the statement.
In addition to the prison term, Sheridan sentenced Martignetti to three years of supervised release.
Dattilo previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and was sentenced in July 2016 to 48 months in prison and ordered to pay $708,386 in restitution, according to the statement.