Farmingville Company Guilty of Violating Wage Law

DA gets felony conviction in prevailing wage case involving public construction project in Sea Cliff

MINEOLA, NY - Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice announced Tuesday that a Farmingville company has been found guilty of violating the state’s prevailing wage law during their construction of a $1.2 million boardwalk in the Village of Sea Cliff.  The company submitted falsified payroll records to the Village indicating they were abiding by the $47-71 per hour prevailing wage established by the state, when, in fact, eight of their nine employees were getting paid only $10-13 per hour.

As a result of their pleading guilty to a felony count of Offering a False Instrument for Filing in the First Degree, MCI Construction Inc. will be forced to pay workers $22,500 in back pay.  The DA’s office also convinced a Nassau County judge to impose a $2,175 fine.  By securing a felony conviction, the DA also successfully secured a five-year revocation of the company’s ability to bid on public construction projects in New York State.

The corporation was charged August 6 and pleaded guilty August 24.

New York State’s prevailing wage law requires companies who work on public projects to pay wages and benefits equal or greater to the state-established prevailing or minimum wage.

The conviction comes after a two-year investigation that began with a tip to the DA’s Office.  Rice said that investigators and prosecutors assigned to her Labor Unit performed a forensic financial examination of the company’s bank records and the payroll records they submitted to the Village. The investigation confirmed the approximately $50-per-hour illegal underpayment to each employee.

At the time of the construction, the prevailing wage for general labor was $47.24 per hour. For equipment operations the wage was $67.03 per hour. For masonry it was $64.40 per hour. The wage for carpentry was $66.65 per hour and for metal lathing, an employee must have been paid at least $71.38 per hour. Each of the eight men performed these tasks on various days during the construction of the boardwalk. 

“Violating the prevailing wage of this state cheats workers and threatens the public’s safety,” said Rice. “For the sake of our community’s workers and for the benefit of the public who deserve safe construction of public projects, I will continue to aggressively treat these incidents as the crimes that they are. The people of Sea Cliff deserve to know there’s someone watching the projects in their community and holding accountable those who receive their tax dollars and don’t play by the rules.”

In 2006, Rice formed the office’s first ever Labor Unit. The unit is comprised of specially-trained prosecutors and investigators, who handle investigations and prosecutions of prevailing wage violations, wage and overtime pay violations, and unemployment and workers’ compensation insurance tax fraud. In 2007, Rice brought together labor leaders from New York City, Nassau and Suffolk County to propose the formation of a Labor Law Advisory Group. LLAG meets quarterly to discuss labor law violations and relevant state law. 

Handling the case for the DA’s Office is Assistant District Attorney Caryn Fink of the DA’s Labor Unit. MCI Construction Inc. is being represented by Marshall Stern, Esq., of Huntington Station.