Telecom Executive Accused Of Looting Company And Greasing Insider For Contracts

By Tiffany Williams –

The feds say a New Jersey telecom hotshot spent years turning his booming construction empire into a one-man slush fund, siphoning millions out the back door while bribing an insider at his biggest customer, lying to bankers, and scrambling to cover his tracks once the walls started closing in.

Anthony Tepedino, 61, founder and CEO of a once-massive telecommunications construction and engineering company that raked in hundreds of millions a year and employed more than 500 people, was hauled into custody at dawn. Prosecutors unsealed an indictment painting the portrait of a boss who, instead of running a thriving enterprise, allegedly ran it like a private ATM. He was scheduled to appear before U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Moses, with the case landing on the docket of Judge Richard M. Berman.

Prosecutors didn’t mince words as they outlined what they say was a six-year tapestry of fraud, bribes, shell companies, fake invoices, impersonations, bank lies, and witness tampering. The allegations read like a financial crime saga: a CEO looting his own company, greasing a senior manager at a major client with more than a million dollars in bribes, and manipulating banks for an $18 million credit line—all while allegedly spinning false stories to his co-conspirators when investigators came knocking.

“As alleged, Anthony Tepedino turned a major construction company into his personal cash machine, stealing from companies that serve New Yorkers, bribing insiders, and lying to banks to keep the scheme alive,” said U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton. “Fraud and corruption hurt real people in this city, and we will hold accountable any executive who abuses the trust placed in them.”

“Anthony Tepedino allegedly stole millions of dollars from his own company by fabricating fake businesses, invoices, and even a story to conceal his misconduct,” said FBI Assistant Director in Charge Christopher G. Raia. “Rather than serve the best interest of his company, Tepedino allegedly abused his rank as CEO and founder to mislead trusted customers and steer their money into his private accounts. The FBI will continue to investigate those who exploit their authoritative position to defraud others for personal profits.”

“As alleged, this defendant engaged in various fraud schemes, stealing millions of dollars from a company he founded and controlled through the use of shell companies and fake documents, and using some of those stolen funds to make commercial bribe payments to a co-conspirator in exchange for steering new contracts, also worth millions, to his company,” said DOI Commissioner Jocelyn E. Strauber. “I thank the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York and our federal law enforcement partners for their work on this important investigation.”

“The FDIC-OIG is pleased to join our law enforcement colleagues in announcing this indictment,” said FDIC-OIG Special Agent in Charge Patricia Tarasca. “The charges reflected in this indictment reinforce the FDIC-OIG’s commitment to investigating allegations of fraud, bribery, and other crimes, as we seek to preserve the integrity of our Nation’s financial system.”

“The allegations against Tepedino paint a rainbow of fraud and criminal acts over more than half a decade,” said IRS-CI Special Agent in Charge Harry T. Chavis, Jr. “Bribery, bank fraud, and stealing from his own company are on the list of ways he’s alleged to have funded his life of luxury. IRS-CI continues to partner in investigations and use its financial expertise to subject alleged conduct like Tepedino’s to justice.”

From 2018 through 2024, prosecutors say Tepedino ran a series of schemes to drain more than $5 million directly from his own operation. The method: a fake vendor pipeline built on shell companies and bogus invoices. The indictment lays out how Tepedino and a co-conspirator created Shell Company-1, pretended it was run by an unrelated third party, and then used it as a funnel to extract company funds. CC-1 allegedly impersonated this supposed owner, “Individual-1,” anytime communications were needed to keep the scam afloat.

The scheme ballooned until it finally snapped in September 2024—after millions had allegedly vanished. But instead of laying low, prosecutors say Tepedino turned around and used part of the stolen cash to execute a second scam: bribing a senior manager at the Construction Company’s largest customer, the Victim Company. Those bribe payments, more than $1 million from 2020 to 2024, allegedly bought a steady flow of lucrative contracts, approvals, and assignments.

The Victim Company paid out more than $300 million to Tepedino’s operation during the four years in which he was greasing CC-2, according to the indictment. For a company already generating enormous revenues, this injection helped keep the empire looking strong on paper—even as large chunks were allegedly being siphoned off the back end.

By late 2021, Tepedino allegedly shifted gears again, this time targeting the Victim Bank. Seeking an $18 million commercial credit infusion, he allegedly made “false statements and omissions” about Shell Company-1 and his dealings with the bribed employee. In ordinary corporate life, this kind of lie can be catastrophic; in federal criminal law, it’s a rocket booster attached to a bank fraud charge that carries a maximum 30-year sentence.

And as the feds closed in, Tepedino allegedly made one more move—classic panic maneuvering, if proven—by allegedly trying to coach CC-1 and CC-2 into false “exculpatory narratives,” hoping to align their stories and explain away the whole enterprise. Witness tampering is often the cherry on top of a corruption case, the signal that the defendant understood full well that the scheme was collapsing.

The charge sheet is a brutal stack. One count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and honest services wire fraud, one count of wire fraud, one count of honest services wire fraud, one count of aggravated identity theft, one count of bank fraud, and one count of witness tampering. The identity theft charge alone would carry a mandatory two-year consecutive sentence if convicted, while the others range from 20 to 30 years. The statutory max totals aren’t literal predictions—judges make the final call—but they’re a loud warning of what could be on the table.

Clayton praised the teams behind the takedown, noting the work of the FBI, DOI, FDIC-OIG, IRS-CI, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s own agents and task force officers. The Public Corruption Unit is steering the prosecution, led by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jessica Greenwood, Matthew King, and Daniel H. Wolf.

For now, the entire narrative remains allegations. The indictment spells it out clearly: the defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty. But if the government proves even a fraction of what it claims, Tepedino could face the kind of downfall that echoes in corporate boardrooms for decades.

A CEO at the helm of a booming enterprise allegedly using shell companies to loot millions, paying off a high-ranking insider to secure a firehose of business, submitting falsified information to a bank hunting for massive credit, and then trying to orchestrate false stories to duck the fallout—it’s the kind of storyline you’d expect out of a premium cable crime series, not a telecommunications construction outfit based in New Jersey.

The feds, however, seem to think it was all very real. And they’ve now placed Tepedino directly in the center of one of the most aggressive public corruption cases to hit the region in recent years. The next move is his.