YOUNGSTOWN — Samuel J. DeCaria, ex-treasurer of B&B Contractors and Developers Inc., was sentenced to six months in federal prison Thursday for his role in a scheme to defraud the Liberty company out of nearly $2 million.

DeCaria’s co-defendant, Philip M. Beshara, B&B’s ex-president, was sentenced Tuesday to two years in federal prison for his part in the scheme, which lasted 10-plus years. Both men were convicted of the same offenses — wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

Both men were ordered to make restitution “jointly and severally” of $1,949,466, minus a $466,165 credit for money paid to the company for a total owed of $1,483,300, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

DeCaria will be on supervised release for one year after he leaves prison. The first six months will be home detention. U.S. District Court Judge J. Philip Calabrese handed down both the Beshara and DeCaria sentences in Cleveland federal court.

Beshara will be placed on parole for three years and is banned from ever gambling again in any manner, including playing the state lottery.

In admitting his guilt, Beshara said he suffered from depression and had a gambling problem.

The company issued a statement saying it was satisfied with DeCaria’s sentence and thanking the judge, the FBI agent and federal prosecutors on the case and the attorneys who handled civil litigation.

THE CONSPIRACY

Beshara and DeCaria admitted to conspiring to devise a scheme to defraud B&B out of about $1.6 million and collected about $350,000 from inflated invoices between March 3, 2006, and Sept 26, 2016, when they were top officers in the company.

They were charged with the two felonies in an Oct. 5, 2022, bill of information and pleaded guilty seven days later to the counts.

The object of the conspiracy was for Beshara and DeCaria to enrich themselves by improperly withdrawing and diverting B&B funds to Beshara. Beshara would illegally issue or cause others, including DeCaria, to issue checks drawn from the company’s account 44 times at First National Bank, according to the bill of information.

Beshara then would either cash the checks or deposit or cause others to deposit the amounts into his personal bank accounts.

According to the bill of information, Beshara also oversaw the evaluation of invoices submitted by subcontractors who worked on construction projects managed by B&B and would inflate subcontractors’ invoices so that the subcontractors charged B&B a higher and improper amount.

After paying that inflated amount to the subcontractors, Beshara then had the subcontractors pay him “at least a portion” of that money 49 times.

While overseeing B&B’s accounting department, DeCaria admitted in his guilty plea that he allowed, facilitated and failed to report Beshara’s fraudulent transactions.