Portland’s VA Medical Center may be on track to award a $12 million elevator modernization contract to a non-union Florida company whose owner is on trial for defrauding the federal government.
The work involves modernizing 21 elevators in all, and it’s one of about 90 similar elevator projects at Veteran’s Administration buildings around the country. Robert Larzalare, national organizer for the International Union of Elevator Constructors, says local union-signatory elevator contractors bid on the Portland job, but Armstrong Elevator of Largo, Florida, ended up as the low bidder in the federal procurement process.
Steve Simpson, also a national organizer with the Elevator Constructors union, says Armstrong Elevator also appears to be the low bidder on VA elevator projects in Tuscaloosa, Alabama; Cleveland and Chillicothe, Ohio; Indianapolis, Indiana; and Topeka, Kansas. But the company’s ability to do business with the government may be in doubt.
In January 2025, company owner Roy Armstrong was arrested on multiple criminal counts after an investigation by the economic crimes section of the U.S. Department of Justice. Charges outlined in the indictment include major fraud, theft of government money, making false statements on sworn documents, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. All the charges revolve around the government’s contention that Armstrong wrongly sought preferential treatment in federal contracting by using a pass-through business technically owned by a service-disabled veteran. The U.S. Attorney’s Office says those false claims helped the firm win nearly $15 million in elevator work at VA hospitals in Philadelphia, Houston, and Palo Alto.
Under a 2006 law, service disabled veterans get the highest priority in contracting for VA contracts awarded to small businesses. But to be eligible, a service-disabled veteran must own 51% or more of the company and control its management and daily operations. According to the federal indictment, Armstrong set up a “pass-through” company called Andros Contracting (named after the Bahamas island where Armstrong owns property.) Andros listed a service-disabled veteran as its owner and bid and won elevator work in federal buildings, even though it was Armstrong Elevator that performed the work. Both businesses maintain office space at a strip mall in Largo, Florida.
Based on the fraud case, Andros Contracting was added last year to a database of contractors ineligible for government work, along with its owner Jeffrey Stockton and Armstrong Elevator owner Roy Armstrong.
The trial date in the case has been repeatedly postponed. Lawyers for the government and defendants are next set to go to court Nov. 18.
If Armstrong pleads guilty or is convicted, he and his firm could be banned from bidding on federal government work.
