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City gave vendor with checkered past a $23M contract for NYPD bomb squad building
By
Ben Feuerherd
Published Oct 12, 2026
Modified Oct 12, 2026
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Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty Images
By
Ben Feuerherd
Published Oct 12, 2026
Modified Oct 12, 2026
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A construction company that won a $23 million contract to construct a building for the NYPD’s Bomb Squad in the Bronx faced scrutiny from a Long Island government watchdog group six years ago after investigators found company officials failed to disclose who was actually running the business.
In a 2020 report, Nassau County's inspector general questioned whether E&A Restoration had the “requisite business integrity” to be responsible for an $85 million contract to build a courthouse in Mineola. The company ultimately disclosed its leadership and was given the contract. Officials from the inspector general’s office then monitored the project, which dragged on more than three years past its scheduled completion date.
A spokesperson for the city’s Department of Design and Construction, which awarded E&A Construction the Bomb Squad contract, said agency officials were aware of the prior investigation when they awarded the city contract. The spokesperson said every procurement goes through a stringent review, and the Bomb Squad project and E&A Restoration were reviewed accordingly.
But experts who spoke to Gothamist said the company’s history should have raised red flags. Alex Camarda, a senior policy adviser for good-government group Reinvent Albany, said that’s especially true because it involves an important NYPD unit.
“The fact that this is a building that is going to be housing the NYPD’s Bomb Squad, and it’s obviously a sensitive area, you would think that the city would want to ensure that all the boxes are checked and all the due diligence has been done,” Camarda said.
In Nassau County, the inspector general found that E&A Restoration did not properly disclose two of the company’s top officers when the company bid on the contract to build a family and matrimonial courthouse in 2020. The inspector general found that because they failed to do so, those officers’ political donations were not made public. Some municipalities, including Nassau County, require companies that bid on public contracts to disclose political donations by officers as a way of preventing corruption.
The company would have been required to disclose a $5,000 contribution made by one of its principals, Antonios Vournou, the Inspector General found. The report did not identify whom Vournou’s contribution went to.
“The Nassau County Office of Inspector General investigated and concluded there were no concerns. We were subsequently awarded the contract by the county Legislature,” Zack Fink, a spokesperson for E&A Restoration, said in an email.
Questions have also been raised about whether E&A Restoration is a woman-owned business — a status that affords it preferential treatment when bidding for certain contracts.
The company was granted that status by New York City in December 2025, days before Mayor Eric Adams left office.
Months prior, New York state denied E&A woman-owned business status. The state and the city have separate criteria for gaining status as a woman-owned business, related to what percentage of a business a woman owns, and what role she plays in making operational decisions, a spokesperson for Empire State Development said.
When the company applied for the status at the state level, an official at the Division of Minority and Women Business concluded that E&A’s president, Jenny Sakalis, “has no experience doing, directing, or supervising construction work, or construction project management, or interpreting plans, specifications, and drawings in order to negotiate and estimate construction costs.”
The company challenged the state’s findings in a lawsuit, arguing that Sakalis runs the company and controls its daily affairs, while also making key business decisions and serving as President of the Board and majority shareholder.
E&A initially filed the suit in State Supreme Court. The suit was transferred to an appeals court earlier this year. E&A ultimately withdrew the suit in June, according to court records. The company did not give a reason for the withdrawal.
Judge Glock, the director of research at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, said any company with a history of an Inspector General investigation and a rejection by the state should draw scrutiny from city officials contemplating awarding it a contract.
Glock said the program that decides which women and minority owned contractors qualify for preferential treatment is ripe for abuse and corruption.
“Given that fraud is common in these programs, especially in regard to putting up figureheads to satisfy minority or women-owned business requirements, the city should be extra careful about engaging with any company that has such a background,” Glock said in an email.
Correction: An earlier version of this story misidentified Zack Fink's role with E&A Restoration. He is a spokesperson for the the company.
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Ben Feuerherd
Ben Feuerherd covers public safety and policing for WNYC and Gothamist. He previously covered federal courts for The New York Post and The Messenger. His work has also appeared in POLITICO, the Daily Beast and NBC New York. Got a tip? Email [email protected].
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