New York Bridge Builder Sued by SEC for Accounting Fraud (1)

The vice president of a northern California construction company was sued by the US Securities and Exchange Commission for fraudulent accounting in projects including bridges in New York.

Dale Swanberg, 59, who lives in Manhattan, Illinois, and oversaw a unit of Granite Construction Inc. in Watsonville, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of San Jose, was accused of taking part in a scheme to defer recording cost increases of projects to hide the weak performance of his group.

Swanberg manipulated the financial reporting of his group by ordering subordinates to use “rosier profit margin numbers, regardless of whether those numbers ...