Alexander Almaraz, ex-LI contractor, admits bilking homeowners affected by Superstorm Sandy out of more than $1M

Former Long Island contractor Alexander Almaraz pleaded guilty to federal wire fraud charges Thursday, sobbing in court before he admitted bilking owners of homes damaged in Superstorm Sandy out more than $1 million  for repairs he knew he would never do.

"People paid you substantial sums of money to do work on their homes and you did not do it?" asked U.S. District Judge Joan M. Azrack in a Central Islip federal courtroom.

"Correct, your honor," Almaraz responded.

"When you made the representations to people that you were going to do the work, did you know in your mind that you were not going to do the work, and you were going to steal the money instead?" she asked.

"Yes, your honor," Almaraz said.

Almaraz will face a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison, along with a fine of up to $1 million and restitution to his victims, when he is sentenced Jan. 14. But under a plea agreement, prosecutors requested no more than 5 years in prison, Assistant U.S. Attorney Megan E. Farrell said in court Thursday.

Almaraz, 56, wearing dark slacks and a rumpled gray shirt, did not respond to a reporter’s request for comment after he left the courtroom. His lawyer, Evan Sugar, of Federal Defenders of New York, declined to comment.

For an "extended period of time," Almaraz, now working as an insurance adjuster, lived in a Texas border town, but is moving to the Kansas City, Kansas, metro area until his sentencing, Sugar said in court.

Sugar, asking Azrack to change the terms of Almaraz’s bail to remove the GPS bracelet he wears, argued his client could have "easily could have cut the bracelet off and fled at any point," but had not. Azrack denied the request. In a news release Thursday from the U.S. Attorney’s Office Eastern District of New York, prosecutors said Almaraz lived in San Antonio, Texas.  

In the release, prosecutors said after Superstorm Sandy devastated Long Island’s South Shore in 2012, Almaraz, the owner of Design Concepts Group LLC in Freeport, signed contracts with at least 20 customers who had received funding from the state’s New York Rising program to lift their homes so new foundations could be installed.

Between 2015 and 2019, according to the release, Almaraz took $2.5 million from the customers. Sometimes, Farrell said in court, he disconnected the electricity and plumbing from their homes, and in some cases, according to a news release, he convinced his victims to move out of their homes and pay him rent to live elsewhere.

But according to the release, instead of fixing his customers’ homes, Almaraz spent their money on a Lamborghini, a Porsche, a Jaguar, to buy land  and to pay his credit card bills.

Almaraz’s actions caused more than $1.5 million in losses to New York Rising and to his victims, according to the release.

Had the case gone to trial, Farrell said in court, prosecutors were prepared to make their case with copies of contracts, checks, banking records and credit card statements showing Almaraz had used the money he was paid for his personal expenses.

Prosecutors would also have used testimony from victims about conversations and emails with Almaraz about incomplete work in which he "gave them excuses and made further promises."

Breon Peace, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in the release that "the individuals who hired Almaraz to repair their homes were further harmed by the defendant’s unconscionable fraudulent scheme, which extended the time they were deprived of a livable home. With his guilty plea today, Almaraz is no longer outrunning the damage that his personal greed inflicted on a shattered Long Island community and it is my hope that the victims will find some solace in the defendant being held accountable and making full restitution."

In 2023, as the New York Rising Homeowner Recovery Program prepared to shut down, Newsday reported the office had awarded more than 11,500 Nassau and Suffolk county applicants with funds to elevate or rehabilitate their homes damaged by Superstorm Sandy in 2012, distributing $1.2 billion in federal funds for the rebuilding effort.

In 2015, Newsday reported a leading civil legal services organization, Manhattan-based New York Legal Assistance Group, had handled more than 300 alleged contractor-fraud cases stemming from Superstorm Sandy.

In 2017, Melissa Luckman, then-director of Touro Law's disaster relief clinic, which provided free legal representation for hundreds of Sandy-affected households, said fraud was becoming a problem.

"Nearly every person we speak with now has some kind of contractor fraud," she told a Newsday reporter.