"Vandelay! Say Vandelay Industries!"

A Rensselaer County man who posed as a licensed architect and was paid more than $180,000 for his fraudulent work on multiple Capital Region building projects pleaded guilty to six felony charges this week.

Paul J. Newman, president of Cohesion Studios, Inc., pleaded guilty to criminal charges in Albany, Rensselaer and Schenectady counties, admitting he defrauded construction companies, business owners and municipal agencies across the Capital Region. The pleas were announced in a statement by Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman, whose office investigated and prosecuted the case.

The investigation was dubbed “Operation Vandelay Industries,” a reference to the sitcom “Seinfeld,” in which the character George Costanza, who dreamed of being an architect, invented a fake company — Vandelay Industries —in an effort to falsely claim he was trying to find work while collecting unemployment benefits.

The attorney general’s office said the investigation revealed Newman drafted architectural renderings for more than 100 properties in the three counties, including multiple large housing projects.

Read more: http://blog.timesunion.com/capitol/archives/275617/say-youre-with-vandelay-industries/