Ex-Port Authority Chief Sees Possible Ground Zero Crimes
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The construction delays and cost overruns at ground zero may have constituted fraud or other crimes, according to a former executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, George Marlin, who is seeking a federal investigation into the redevelopment of the site.
Mr. Marlin said yesterday that the Port Authority may have misled investors about the costs and schedules for the five towers, the memorial, the performing arts center, and the PATH transit station.
He said he plans to ask the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Michael Garcia, to open an investigation into whether there was any criminal wrongdoing.
“We need to determine whether there was waste, fraud, abuse, or any wrongdoing that might be called criminal. Things were said that were blatantly not true,” Mr. Marlin said in an interview yesterday. “I think it’s time for some outside, independent investigators to get to the truth of why this mess had occurred, and whether there was any wrongdoing.”
He said the Port Authority may have breached its fiduciary duty to bondholders by providing misleading statements and misrepresenting the financial state of the bistate agency, which owns the 16-acre site.
A spokesman for the Port Authority, Steve Coleman, declined to comment.
The current executive director of the Port Authority, Christopher Ward, last week said the previous schedules for completion dates were “unrealistic.” Mr. Ward will be presenting Governor Paterson with a more detailed scheduling and budget assessment by the end of September. Cost overruns at the site are expected to be in the billions of dollars.
A source with knowledge of the bond financing for the $15 billion World Trade Center redevelopment said he could not imagine that there was any criminal wrongdoing on the part of the Port Authority.
“What would be the benefit for them? They really tried to hit these deadlines, so we are talking more about ineptitude,” the source said.
Mr. Marlin was appointed executive director of the Port Authority by Governor Pataki and served in that capacity between 1995 and 1997.
He has since become a frequent critic of the Port Authority.
