Westchester Contractors Accused of Cheating Workers: NY AG

PORT CHESTER, NY – Two Westchester contractors have been indicted, arrested and arraigned for failing to pay workers thousands of dollars in wages. Donato Pagnotta and Giovanni Dilullo, owners of J & D Painting Contractors Corp., were criminally charged by a grand jury indictment for scheming to defraud their workers, stealing those workers’ wages, and failing to pay them in accordance with the New York Labor Law, as well as failing to contribute to the New York State Unemployment Insurance Fund, Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman said in an announcement Monday.

“My office has zero tolerance for employers who exploit their workers,” Schneiderman said. “The defendants stole thousands in wages that these workers earned. We’ll continue to use every tool at our disposal to ensure New York’s workers are treated with fairness and dignity.”

According to the indictment and statements made at the arraignment, between May 2016 and January 2017, Pagnotta, Dilullo, and Port Chester-based J & D employed workers for painting and maintenance services in multiple locations throughout Westchester County. (To get other neighborhood stories like this, SIGN UP for Patch’s Daily Newsletter and Real Time News Alerts.)

Their investigation revealed that the employees were repeatedly promised payment at the end of each 40-hour week, but instead were strung along by Pagnotta and Dilullo, who kept promising that they would pay the owed wages the following week, prosecutors alleged. The scheme of failing to pay, and thus stealing workers’ wages, deprived six workers of nearly $20,000 in earned wages.

In addition to refusing to pay their workers properly, the defendants failed to contribute to the Unemployment Insurance Fund during the second, third, and fourth quarters of 2016, prosecutors alleged.

The indictment, filed in Westchester County, charges Pagnotta, Dilullo, and J & D with four counts of Grand Larceny in the Third Degree, a D felony; two counts of Grand Larceny in the Fourth Degree, an E felony; one count of Scheme to Defraud, an E felony; six counts of Failure to Pay Wages in Accordance with the Labor Law, an unclassified misdemeanor; and three counts of Failure to Make Required Contribution to the Unemployment Insurance Fund, an unclassified misdemeanor.

The defendants were released on their own recognizance and are scheduled to return to court onOctober 5, 2017. The charges are merely accusations, and the defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law.

The investigation was handled for the Attorney General’s Office by Investigator Elsa Rojas, Investigator Walter Lynch, Investigator Steven Broomer, Investigator Ismael Hernandez, Supervising Investigator Michael Leahy, Supervising Investigator Sylvia Rivera, Deputy Chief Investigator John McManus, and Chief Dominick Zarrella.

The prosecution is being handled by Assistant Attorney General Jeremy Pfetsch and Health Care Bureau Deputy Bureau Chief Susan Cameron, Criminal Section Chief Richard Balletta of the Labor Bureau, and Stephanie Swenton, Chief of the Criminal Enforcement and Financial Crimes Bureau. ReNika Moore is the Labor Bureau Chief, Alvin Bragg is the Executive Deputy Attorney General for Social Justice.

The Attorney General thanked the New York State Department of Labor, including Deputy Commissioner for Worker Protection James Rogers, Assistant Deputy Commissioner for Worker Protection Milan Bhatt, and Unemployment Insurance Division Auditor Ilan Basch, under the supervision of Special Audit and Enforcement Unit Supervisor Louis Adinolfi, for their assistance in the investigation and prosecution.

>> Check Out The Hudson Valley Patches' Facebook Pages

NY AG Eric Schneiderman/ file photo