Mauro Aguirre and his wife, Keren Aguirre, owners of Escapade Acoustic Drywall, were arrested at their Lafayette home yesterday on charges of felony theft and workers’ compensation premium fraud. The Aguirres are accused of not paying $1.2 million in insurance premiums. According to arrest records, the Louisiana Insurance Fraud Task Force received a tip from the Louisiana Carpenters Regional Council, which collected three bags of trash from outside the Aguirre’s home that included financial records showing the couple reported 35 employees with a payroll of $145,347, when it should have reported more than 300 employees with a payroll of more than $4.2 million. The Attorney General’s office says the company has done commercial drywall work throughout the state.
Charlie Manning, business development director for the carpenters union, says one of the businesses the Aguirres supplied labor for is contractor Lloyd N. Moreau of Pineville, which worked on projects at LSU and Our Lady of the Lake. “The labor brokers that are out there violating the same laws the Aguirres were arrested for, they’re next on the list,” Manning says. “We’re going after them too.”
Chris Broadwater, director of the Workforce Commission’s Office of Worker’s Compensation, says the investigation into the Aguirres’ situation is ongoing, as are similar investigations of other contractors or subcontractors. The task force made another arrest today, which makes 10 so far this year, the Workforce Commission says. Neal Angrum, owner of Water Works Cleaning Service in Monroe, is accused of forging an insurance certificate to make it appear that his company had workers’ compensation coverage in order to maintain a service contract with the state.
“We want to get the word out to everyone that we’re serious about this,” Broadwater says. “We want employers to know we are looking at a number of other individuals. Now would be a very good time for them to take the appropriate action to turn in accurate information, voluntarily pay any amount they shortchanged insurers, if they’re operating in an uninsured capacity, get insurance now, and help mitigate any damage they’ve done in the process. That will be taken into consideration as we move forward.” For a recent Business Report story about workplace fraud, click here.—David Jacobs
