Michael Vasconcellos Sentenced to 30 Months for Pipeline Fraud

Michael Vasconcellos has been sentenced to 30 months in prison for his role in a conspiracy to fake hundreds of gas pipeline safety tests. The fraud, which spanned several years and covered critical infrastructure in the Bronx and Westchester County, left residents relying on safety checks that never happened and cost a regulated utility company more than $64 million in remediation expenses.

The case, detailed in a sentencing announcement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, reveals a systemic failure of oversight where the very person hired to prevent explosions was instead fabricating the evidence that the pipelines were safe. For the thousands of New Yorkers living above these lines, the “safety” they were promised was nothing more than a paper trail of lies.

The Mechanics of ‘Radaring’

To understand how Vasconcellos bypassed safety protocols, one has to understand the technical process of non-destructive testing. When natural gas pipelines are installed, they are laid in segments and welded together. To ensure these welds aren’t defective—which could lead to catastrophic leaks or explosions—inspectors use radiographs, essentially X-rays of the metal.

Vasconcellos and his co-conspirator, Liam Treibert, didn’t actually perform these checks on hundreds of welds. Instead, they engaged in a fraudulent industry practice known as “radaring.” In this scheme, an inspector radiographs a single weld twice. They then submit the first set of films as the result for “Weld A” and the second set of identical films as the result for “Weld B.”

By recycling the same image, Vasconcellos created a fraudulent record that suggested a pipeline had passed a critical safety test when, in reality, the second weld had never been looked at. This wasn’t a clerical error; it was a deliberate effort to avoid the labor of inspection while collecting payment for work that was never performed.

“Michael Vasconcellos fabricated gas pipeline test results designed to prevent gas leaks and explosions, putting the lives of New Yorkers at risk,” said U.S. Attorney Jamie McDonald.

A $64 Million Cleanup

The financial fallout of this deception is staggering. Because the utility company—identified in court documents as Utility-1—was led to believe the pipelines were secure, the discovery of the fraud triggered a massive remediation effort. The company has spent over $64 million to go back and actually verify the integrity of the welds Vasconcellos claimed to have inspected.

The human stakes, however, outweigh the balance sheet. In an urban environment like New York City, where gas lines run beneath densely populated neighborhoods and critical transit hubs, a single failed weld can lead to a disaster. By skipping these checks, Vasconcellos essentially gambled with the lives of every resident in the affected areas of the Bronx and Westchester County.

The timeline of the deception was extensive. The fraud occurred between roughly 2016 and 2023, meaning these unverified pipelines may have been in active service for years before the conspiracy was uncovered.

The Legal Reckoning

The legal process culminated when U.S. District Judge Cathy Seibel handed down the sentence. Vasconcellos, 45, of Mahopac, New York, had previously pled guilty on April 21, 2026, to one count of conspiring to commit wire fraud.

The court’s judgment reflects both the criminal nature of the fraud and the economic damage caused:

Prison Term: 30 months in federal prison.
Supervised Release: 3 years of monitoring following his release.
Financial Penalty: An order to pay over $64 million in restitution.

The investigation required a coordinated effort across multiple agencies, including the Offices of the New York State Inspector General and the Office of Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Transportation.