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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) _ The owner of a San Francisco construction company was charged with 49 counts of felony insurance and tax fraud for allegedly misrepresenting her payroll costs, California's insurance commissioner said Wednesday.

Martha P. O'Neill, owner of Avoca Trucking and Excavating, was arrested in Atlanta on Aug. 2. Investigators said that by underreporting her payroll by more than $5 million over 3 1/2 years, O'Neill deprived the state of more than $900,000 in insurance premiums and taxes.

"The type of crime alleged in this case is a tremendous added cost that hurts all of the employers and workers in California," Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi said in a statement.

Avoca, which primarily performed work for San Francisco and other Bay Area cities, employed about 100 people, according to state authorities.

Calls to Avoca's offices did not go through on Wednesday, and it could not be immediately determined whether O'Neill, 40, had obtained a lawyer.

State investigators based the charges on documents they seized from O'Neill's office, home, bank and storage facilities.

Earlier this year, Avoca agreed to pay $274,000 in back wages to 22 employees after San Francisco labor officials found that company workers had improperly been denied overtime, benefits and meal breaks. A two-year city investigation also found that Avoca had paid some workers in cash to avoid payroll taxes and underreported the number of hours its employees worked.