Letters

The recent dismissal of the indictment against Bob Terry and Terry Contracting was long overdue [“Payroll Case Against Riverhead Contractor Thrown Out,” 27east.com, December 2]. Throughout this ordeal, the only parties who fulfilled their obligations under the law were Bob Terry, his company and its employees.

Terry Contracting won the job to reconstruct a marina in the Town of Brookhaven through competitive bidding, completed the work to the town’s full satisfaction in 2018, and submitted certified payrolls throughout — each accepted without objection. The company paid both skilled dock builders and unskilled laborers exactly as reflected in its bid and its certified payrolls.

Yet in 2020, the State Department of Labor abruptly informed Terry Contracting that its unskilled laborers should have been paid as skilled dock builders and demanded retroactive pay. This was wrong.

The DOL pursued a criminal prosecution claiming violations of the prevailing wage law — a law designed to ensure that workers on public works projects are paid wages set in accordance with law. The statute is clear: Before a project goes out to bid, the municipality must classify each type of worker needed for the job and submit those classifications to the DOL. The DOL must then review and revise the classifications if necessary. When the final classifications are issued, they must be incorporated into the bid documents. In this case, neither the Town of Brookhaven nor the DOL followed those procedures.

The New York Supreme Court dismissed the indictment against Bob Terry and Terry Contracting. The court held that the DOL could not create a definition of “dock builder” in the grand jury; only the prosecutor may instruct the grand jury on the law. That definition must come from the awarded contract itself.

While the prevailing wage law remains constitutional, the court found it unconstitutional as applied in the Terry prosecution pursued by the DOL.

Anyone with even modest common sense could see that this case never should have been brought. Yet it took nearly six years — from January 2020 to October 2025 — to put an end to this injustice.

The harm to Bob Terry and his company is obvious. But taxpayers should be just as concerned. Who will bid on public works projects if they face the risk of arbitrary DOL action years after a job is completed? And if contractors do bid, how much will they inflate their prices to account for the possibility of future legal battles?

The Town of Brookhaven received its project on time, at the best price and to its satisfaction. But unless the DOL is prevented from bringing such baseless prosecutions, the public will continue to pay the price.

Thomas Moore

Westhampton Beach

Moore is a former Suffolk County assistant district attorney who then served as a law clerk to New York Superior Court judges for 30 years — Ed.