The recent admission by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey that it cannot present a timeline for the reconstruction of ground zero may prove that the agency’s previous publicly announced schedules and budgets amounted to fraud, a letter seeking an investigation by the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York states.

“Billions of federal and state taxpayer dollars have been spent on hard and soft costs for the various Ground Zero projects with seemingly minimal progress in light of the public policy urgency of prompt completion,” a former executive director of the Port Authority, George Marlin, said in a letter sent yesterday to the U.S. attorney for Southern District of New York, Michael Garcia, calling for an investigation to be opened into whether there was any criminal wrongdoing in the World Trade Center site redevelopment process. “It is incumbent upon your office to determine whether all applicable federal laws and regulations have been complied with.”

The current executive director of the Port Authority, Christopher Ward, said earlier this month that the early schedules for completion dates were “unrealistic.”

The Port Authority owns the 16-acre World Trade Center site.

“Given the recently disclosed fiasco led by the Port Authority, the question of whether there was fraud, waste and abuse on a mammoth scale must be addressed by an independent party,” the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Sun, said. A spokeswoman for the Port Authority, Candace McAdams, said disclaimers were included with the bonds used to fund the project, saying that future costs for the project were just estimates.

Mr. Garcia’s office declined to comment, and a spokeswoman for the Port Authority was unavailable for comment.

Mr. Marlin’s letter comes a day after a Republican state senator of Long Island, John Flanagan, the chairman of a committee that oversees public authorities, called for a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into statements by a former Port Authority executive director, Anthony Shorris, regarding the World Trade Center site. Mr. Flanagan’s comments were first reported in the New York Post on Sunday.

Mr. Marlin served as executive director of the Port Authority between 1995 and 1997.

According to a source involved with the creation of the World Trade Center site schedules more than a year ago, the Port Authority under Mr. Shorris starting in June 2007 was repeatedly told by other involved organizations, including the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., that the dates they were providing the public were overly optimistic.