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BURNED BIGS: Three other executives of Lehr Construction Corp. — (from left) Todd Phillips, Steven Wasserman and Steven Halper — face charges.

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The walls are tumbling down on these construction bigs.

Four executives at a Big Apple construction company ripped off clients at high-powered law firms and investment houses in a $30 million fraud scheme, Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance Jr. charged yesterday.

The rooked clients — primarily law and financial outfits that hired Lehr Construction Corp. to manage the renovations of their offices — include Fidelity Investments, Zurich North America, Ramius Capital, Unum, and The Economist magazine, according to the indictment.

The law firms Gilder, Gagnon, Howe & Co., Warburg Pincus, and Holland & Knight each suffered overcharges in excess of $250,000, Vance said.

Lehr, a major interior construction company, now in bankruptcy, plied its scheme by systematically inflating invoices and striking secret deals with subcontractors, the DA said.

Charged with enterprise corruption — which carries a mandatory minimum sentence of at least one year in prison — are executive vice president and director Jeffrey Lazar, executive vice-president in charge of operations Todd Phillips, finance director Steven Halper and chief of estimating department and cost control Steven Wasserman.

The Lehr roundup is the first enterprise-corruption case brought in the interior-construction trade, officials said.

The construction execs would collude with subcontractors in secretly overcharging the clients, according to the indictment. The subcontractors would then pocket the money, allegedly reimbursing Lehr by undercharging the construction company on future jobs.

The four pleaded not guilty yesterday in Manhattan Supreme Court, and each surrendered his passport and remains free on a $150,000 bail bond.

An investigation into charges against the subcontractors is continuing, officials said.

Lazar’s father, Gerald, and uncle, Howard, both Lehr execs at the time, were busted in 1998 on bid-rigging charges.

The two pleaded guilty to first-degree commercial bribery. Howard was sentenced to 1 to 3 years in prison, Gerald received a conditional discharge, and Lehr continued operations under a court-instated monitor.

“It’s estimated that fraud such as this adds as much as a 10 percent cost” to the $20 billion estimated to be spent on construction in New York City this year,” Vance said.

“This is illegal and this is intolerable,” he said.

In addition to enterprise corruption, the four are charged with scheme to defraud and grand larceny. Halper is additionally charged with money laundering.

They are due back in court before Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Roger Hayes on July 8.

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