WHITE PLAINS – Federal authorities have charged the owner of a landscaping business with bribery and bid rigging and a former assistant general foreman with the Town of Cortlandt with the bribery scheme.
Authorities allege that from 2018 to February 2020, Glenn Griffin, 53, of Cortlandt Manor, owner of Griffin’s Landscaping Corporation, and Robert Dyckman, 51, of Verplanck, the former Cortlandt town employee, engaged in an unauthorized dumping scheme.
Dyckman allegedly gave Griffin and his employees unauthorized access to Arlo Lane, a Cortlandt facility, to dump hundreds of large truckloads of unauthorized materials such as thick concrete, cement with rebar, large rocks, and soil.
Based on estimates provided by third-party vendors, the Town of Cortlandt estimates it will cost between $600,000 to $1.5 million to remove the materials.
In exchange for access to Arlo Lanes, Griffin allegedly gave Dyckman cash bribes, firewood, flowers and gardening materials and made extensive improvements to Dyckman’s home at no cost.
Griffin also gave Dyckman a backdates, false involve for Dyckman to give his insurance company in support of a false insurance claim.
It is also alleged that between 2015 and 2018, Griffin also engaged in a bid-rigging scheme.
Griffin defrauded the Village of Croton-on-Hudson, for work on its schools, and the hamlet of Verplanck, for work at its fire department. It is alleged that he made sham, non-competitive, and inflated bids on behalf of entitles that Griffin did not work for or have authorization to submit bids on behalf of, so that Griffin would be the low bidder in a pool of purportedly competitive bids and receive public money for work on the projects.
Based on the sham, non-competitive, and inflated bids, Griffin was awarded contracts with a combined value of over $133,000.
