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Man gets 55 months in Bloomington concrete scam

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (AP) – A Bedford man has been sentenced to 55 months in federal prison for a years-long scheme to embezzle more than $440,000 from the city of Bloomington through false concrete contracts.

Forty-four-year-old Justin Wykoff was taken into custody by a U.S. marshal after a federal judge’s Tuesday ruling. A father and son were previously sentenced in the scam.

The (Bloomington) Herald Times reports that the judge called Wykoff the ringleader of a longstanding scam that robbed taxpayers.

Wykoff admitted that he instigated the scam by falsifying a city concrete contract in 2008, when he was working as Bloomington’s engineering projects director. He pleaded guilty to 11 counts of wire fraud.

Wykoff will have to serve 75 percent of his sentence, followed by three years of supervised probation.