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ST. LOUIS — Prominent area apartment developers Sid Chakraverty and Victor Alston, and their chief accountant, Shijing “Poppy� Cao, pleaded not guilty Friday to federal fraud charges accusing them of falsifying records submitted to comply with the city’s minority and women-owned business contracting requirements.

Alston, 46, and Chakraverty, 40, are the brothers behind what had been one of the city’s most prolific multifamily developers in recent years, Lux Living, and its construction arm, Big Sur. They also own and manage more than 1,000 other apartment units in older buildings in the region via the companies Asprient Properties and STL CityWide.

For years, tenants have complained of shoddy construction and unresponsive management. They settled a class-action lawsuit over withholding security deposits. Downtown loft dwellers claimed they drove once-posh buildings into the ground after taking over their condominium boards.

Alston, Chakraverty and Cao appeared in handcuffs in federal court Friday to enter their pleas. All three were told to surrender their passports and were released on bond.

The charges stem from what the government says were fraudulent documents submitted for the city’s minority hiring program. In exchange for property tax abatement and other incentives ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ approved for Lux’s new projects, they were required to try and hire a certain percentage of firms owned by minorities and women.

But an indictment unsealed last Friday charged the brothers and Cao with 11 counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The charges accuse them of sending documents to the city’s development office that falsely claimed purchasing millions of dollars in construction materials and labor from women and minority companies. In one instance, they claimed to buy over $1 million in construction materials from a woman-owned company that only performed cleaning services at their developments.

“We can make it look like we paid her, but we didn’t actually pay her,� Cao, 36, was recorded telling a company employee, according to the indictment.

The developers received over $3 million worth of tax incentives on their projects based on their false minority hiring claims, prosecutors say.

In court, Friday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Hal Goldsmith said the government has over half a million pages of financial documents as part of its case against the trio.

Judge Noelle Collins advised the defendants not to speak to potential witnesses or each other about the case, though she acknowledged Alston and Chakraverty are both business partners and brothers, so communication between them was inevitable. Chakraverty’s attorney, Avi Weitzman of Paul Hastings’ New York office, requested that prosecutors turn over a list of company employees who may be government witnesses so they know who not to speak to about the case.

Goldsmith said prosecutors didn’t need to do that, and the judge agreed.

“They know who their employees are,� Goldsmith said. “They’re very hands-on managers.�

As a condition of Cao’s release, the judge ordered she resign as chief accountant.

“She is a direct supervisor to numerous people who might be called as witnesses,� Collins said.

But Cao’s attorney, Michael Thompson of Chicago, objected.

“I acknowledge that is a problem, I just don’t know that the solution is to force her into unemployment,� Thompson said.

Goldsmith alluded to a sealed motion he recently filed that raises questions about Thompson’s firm, the , representing some of the company employees who may serve as government witnesses in the case. Judge Collins said prosecutors would not have to hand over their evidence to the defense until the court holds a hearing on the law firm’s potential conflict.

Thompson declined to comment after the hearing. So did Chakraverty’s attorney, Weitzman.