Inside NJ contractor’s lavish life with wife before multi-million-dollar IRS bust

A businessman from New Jersey is facing up to 20 years in prison after federal prosecutors said he spent years defrauding the government and others out of millions of dollars.

Nigel Kenneth Joseph, 45, of Bergenfield, was arrested Tuesday, July 22, and charged in Manhattan federal court with 11 counts of failure to account for and pay payroll taxes from the masonry subcontracting firm, BWK, that he founded in the Bronx in 2019.

Unpaid taxes fueled luxury lifestyle, feds say

Federal prosecutors say Joseph failed to pay nearly $2.9 million in employee payroll taxes and at least $750,000 in employer taxes despite earning more than $10 million on construction projects from 2019 to 2021 in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut.

Instead, he funneled the money into his lavish lifestyle, buying NBA tickets and a Rolex watch; leasing a BMW 3-Series, Mercedes GLE, BMW 5-Series; traveling to the Dominican Republic and Jamaica; and providing his wife with tens of thousands of dollars, investigators said.

“As alleged, Nigel Joseph didn’t just shortchange his workers — he lied about it, falsified records, and pocketed the money for himself,” U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Jay Clayton said in a written statement.

“Then he allegedly defrauded the public by ducking millions in taxes. That’s not entrepreneurship that fuels growth—it’s fraud that erodes trust.”

Criminal charges go beyond unpaid taxes

According to investigators, Joseph also conspired with others to defraud a construction contractor out of $1.96 million by submitting falsified payroll documents for public school construction jobs on Long Island. The fake records misrepresented names, hours, wages, and even the job roles of individuals — including listing his wife as a “laborer” and himself as a “foreman.”

One of Joseph’s employees told investigators that Joseph declined to collect or file taxes during the COVID-19 pandemic, reportedly telling the worker that the IRS wasn’t “paying attention,” investigators said.

Investigators said that in a text message to an employee on Nov. 8, 2021, Joseph acknowledged the manipulation, writing: “Damn... I’m thinking I should not have put everyone working 35 hours every week.”

Joseph has also been charged with aggravated identity theft. If convicted on all counts, he faces a maximum of 20 years in prison.