By Otis R. Taylor Jr.   May 1, 2017 

Mario Wagner was trained in the family flooring business, Wagner’s Carpet Installations, which was run by his father and uncle.

But it collapsed after 20 years, and Wagner wanted to avoid such a fate for his company in Oakland, RF Contractors.
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He sought guidance from Turner Group Construction, a family-run business that has worked on several high-profile Bay Area projects, including the renovation of the Fox Theater in Oakland. He admired how the family members worked together at Turner.

Work with the community,” Wagner, 30, said. “It reminded me of the family business we had where we gave out turkeys and things like that. I wanted to continue that.

“I kind of took to them, because they represented where I wanted to take my business. The Turners really saw the dedication that I had.”

But Wagner, an Oakland native who dropped out of high school to start his own flooring business, said he needed mentoring to keep the business on a prosperous track. That’s a challenge facing young, black contractors.

What the Turner family represents to him is more than subcontracting work tossed his direction. Wagner said they have provided business knowledge and skills taught in classes at the Bay Area Resource Center, a contractor outreach program started by Turner Group.

"That’s more valuable than anything,” Wagner said. “I took advantage of those classes. I think I’ve surpassed the knowledge portion of the business that my uncle and dad had.”

His father and uncle now work for him at RF Contractors, which has done projects for Men’s Wearhouse, San Francisco International Airport and Oakland Housing Authority.

Now it’s the Turners’ turn to fight for the life of their company.

Last month a federal grand jury indicted eight people after a bid-rigging investigation. Two of the people charged were Turner Group Construction executives and brothers: Chief Operating Officer Lance Turner, 57, of Oakland and Chief Financial Officer Len Turner, 56, of San Leandro.

Both face charges of conspiring to defraud the U.S. Department of Energy.

According to the indictment, the Turners engaged in bid rigging for a contract to renovate a Department of Energy-owned building at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The Turners allegedly were aided in the scheme by Taj Reid, the son of Oakland City Councilman Larry Reid.

Taj Reid and the Turners allegedly colluded with a “developer” willing to pay bribes. The developer was actually an undercover FBI informant. The Turners allegedly agreed to submit a higher bid so that the developer could secure the contract with a lower bid.

According to attorneys representing the Turners, millions of dollars in projects that were in the company’s pipeline have been frozen or postponed since the indictment. If the brothers are convicted, it could be a fatal blow to a homegrown company that gives second chances to ex-cons, a company that pulled up other local black and brown contractors as its business expanded.

But the case against the Turners seems weirdly constructed. And looking at how the developer — known to those he was introduced to as William Joseph — socialized makes me wonder what the government was after.

After snagging state Sen. Leland Yee and former San Francisco school board President Keith Jackson in a sting, the feds angled for some big fish across the bay in Oakland.

They used Joseph, a black man whose cover story was that he was an Atlanta developer looking to put some money into big projects, like a five-star hotel near the Coliseum complex in Oakland.

According to my colleagues Matier & Ross, Joseph waved around a multimillion-dollar letter of credit and bragged that he had access to even more money. While it’s unknown just who Joseph had meetings with, he approached at least two black San Francisco supervisors, London Breed and Malia Cohen. He also reached out to at least two black Oakland City Council members, Reid and Lynette Gibson McElhaney.

And six of the eight men indicted along with the Turners are black.

“When the Turners are vindicated, the government will have to answer to why it deliberately went and tried to target a minority business with an excellent reputation in the East Bay community,” Dennis Riordan, Len Turner’s attorney, told me.

The Turners entered not guilty pleas last week.

“Our clients are innocent of the charges, we believe,” said Martha Boersch, who represents Lance Turner. “They’re looking forward to showing that and proving that in court.”

Their defense is that the bid Turner Group submitted was legitimate.

“The point is that if they in good faith believed that they were submitting a valid bid on the DOE project, there’s nothing wrong with that,” Riordan said. “They were led to believe by Joseph there was a valid project so they submitted what they believed to be a valid bid in connection with that project.”

Wagner told me the indictment of the Turners feels like an assault. He said he still had a lot to learn from them as he builds toward his goal of securing a million-dollar contract.

Last week, he submitted a $400,000 bid to do the floors for a senior housing project in Richmond.

“I remember not having opportunities and knocking on doors, and I’m glad the Turner door opened,” said Wagner, who is enrolled in a 10-week project management course at Bay Area Resource Center. “I’m able to help other subcontractors and even general contractors with what I’ve been taught.”

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Otis R. Taylor Jr. appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @otisrtaylorjr

By Otis R. Taylor Jr.     April 12, 2017

A few years back, Oakland’s city auditor found that two council members — Desley Brooks and Larry Reid — violated a law by interfering with city staffers who were awarding a city contract involving the redevelopment of the former Oakland Army Base.

After examining thousands of emails and interviewing more than three dozen people, then-auditor Courtney Ruby concluded in 2013 that Brooks and Reid appeared to favor one company for a roughly $2 million contract: Turner Group Construction.

No charges were filed, and Turner, which has offices in Oakland, Richmond and San Francisco, wasn’t accused of wrongdoing. Another company was awarded the contract.

Now, Turner Group Construction is back in the news — this time getting hammered by questions of fraud.

Last week, a federal grand jury indicted eight people following a bid-rigging investigation. Two of the people charged were Turner Group Construction executives: Chief Operating Officer Lance Turner, 57, of Oakland and Chief Financial Officer Len Turner, 56, of San Leandro. Both face charges of conspiring to defraud the U.S. Department of Energy.

Another of the people charged happened to be Reid’s son, Taj Reid, 46. In addition to a charge of conspiring to defraud the U.S. Energy Department, he faces charges of conspiring to receive a bribe and receiving a bribe.

According to the indictment, the Turners engaged in bid rigging for a contract to renovate a Department of Energy-owned building at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The Turners were allegedly aided in the scheme by Taj Reid
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Taj Reid and the Turners allegedly colluded with a “developer” willing to pay bribes. The “developer” was actually an undercover FBI informant.

The Turners allegedly agreed to submit a higher bid so that the developer could secure the contract with a lower bid. In return, they’d receive cash or the promise of construction work once the contract was awarded, according to the U.S. attorney’s office.

Taj Reid also is charged with conspiring to make an inside deal on contracts for two residential construction projects involving veterans. He allegedly plotted with Eric Worthen, 45, of Pleasant Hill, a former California Department of Veterans Affairs employee. Worthen and Taj Reid allegedly accepted $12,000 for the two deals.

They and the other defendants in the case are due to make their first court appearances Monday in San Francisco. The indictments are a result of an FBI sting operation in 2012-14 that led to the convictions of state Sen. Leland Yee, San Francisco political consultant Keith Jackson and Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow, leader of a Chinatown community organization.

It was Jackson who introduced the informant to Taj Reid, according to the U.S. attorney’s office.
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None of this looks good for the Turners. And it certainly casts an even darker cloud over what happened back in 2013 at Oakland City Hall, where Larry Reid and Brooks were found to have improperly intervened on behalf of Turner Group.

What deeply troubles me is that Turner Group is a pillar of the East Bay’s black community, an example of success. I know that black-owned construction businesses must stay above ethical sinkholes, by strictly adhering to all codes and regulations, to gain recognition — and repeat business. Corners can’t be cut; they must be smoothed to specifications, perfect.

Founded in 2005, Turner Group has worked on several high-profile Bay Area projects, including the renovation of the Fox Theater in Oakland and the Boys & Girls Club’s Mission Clubhouse in San Francisco. And Turner has a reputation for creating desperately-needed work opportunities for the formerly incarcerated.

But what will Turner’s reputation be after two of its highest-ranking officers have their day in court?

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Otis R. Taylor Jr. appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @otisrtaylorjr