Demanded Employees to Kick Back Checks They Were Entitled to Receive from the Labor Department
A Glen Head resident and his Glen Cove-based paving and masonry company were sentenced on wage theft charges for demanding that his employees kick back checks that they were entitled to receive from the State Department of Labor because of the company’s failure to pay the prevailing wage on public work projects in Brookville and Sands Point.
Angelo Stanco, 59, was convicted on May 23 before Judge Helene Gugerty of Petit Larceny (an A misdemeanor), and his company, American Paving & Masonry Corp. of Glen Cove, was convicted of Grand Larceny in the Third Degree (a D felony). Stanco was sentenced to a one-year conditional discharge. American Paving was sentenced to a three-year conditional discharge and payment of restitution to 18 former employees totaling $171,278.02. The defendants made full payment of the restitution amount today to the employees ranging from a high of $21,227.26 to a low of $1,853.51.
Because the convictions were related to public work projects in Nassau County, both Stanco and American Paving are prohibited from performing New York public work contracts until May 23, 2029.
“This defendant not only failed to pay his employees their fair and rightly owed prevailing wage, but further victimized and bullied workers by shaking them down for checks they received as compensation from the State and threatening their future employment if they did not hand the checks over,” said DA Donnelly. “Today, Angelo Stanco and American Paving finally made these workers, and employees from various other projects, whole with a restitution payment of more than $170,000. Angelo and American Paving will continue to pay for their deceit, as they are barred from work on public projects for the next five years. I thank the New York State Department of Labor for their partnership and for bringing this case to my office for prosecution.”
According to Donnelly, Stanco, of American Paving & Masonry Corp., executed two stipulations with the New York State Department of Labor (DOL), Public Work Bureau acknowledging underpaid prevailing wages owed to employees on public work projects in the Villages of Brookville and Sands Point.
The stipulations, ordered by the Commissioner of Labor, required Stanco and American to remit $102,631 to the DOL for the underpaid prevailing wages and interest.
DOL issued 25 restitution checks for the underpayments and interest to 22 employees on December 7, 2018. Stanco and American provided the employees’ address information to the DOL allowing the agency to mail the checks directly to the underpaid employees. However, between December 13, 2018, and January 3, 2019, Stanco demanded several employees kick-back the DOL checks to Stanco and American as a condition of their future employment.
Many of the kicked-back checks were allegedly fraudulently endorsed by Stanco or double-endorsed with Stanco’s name and deposited into accounts controlled by Stanco. Seven employees were affected by the scheme, and the amount of the kickbacks totaled $42,595.57.
The additional restitution of $128,682.45 is attributable to wage theft by the defendants on public work jobs at numerous Nassau County locations between 2019 and 2022. Those locations include road work done at the Glen Cove School District, and the Villages of Great Neck, Great Neck Plaza, Flower Hill, Roslyn, Roslyn Harbor, Freeport, Lawrence, Cedarhurst, and Hewlett.
“In New York State, we are committed to protecting workers’ rights and ensuring they receive fair compensation for the work they do,” New York State Labor Commissioner Roberta Reardon. “This restitution serves as a crucial step in rectifying the harm done and emphasizes our continued commitment to enforcing prevailing wage laws. We will continue to work tirelessly to ensure justice for all workers across the state.”