A manager at a North Babylon asbestos removal and demolition labor company was sentenced on Tuesday, Jan. 20, for failing to pay more than $80,000 in prevailing wages owed to employees for public works projects at schools in the Merrick and Oceanside School Districts between 2019 and 2021, Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly announced.
Joseph Demasco pleaded guilty on March 14, 2025, to failure to pay the prevailing wage. He was sentenced to five years’ probation and required to pay restitution totaling $81,592 for underpaying wages to more than 40 workers. Demasco is also prohibited from working on public works projects in the state for five years.
Between June 2019 and November 2019, BJA Renovations Corp. performed work on public works projects at the Merrick School District as a subcontractor at the Birch School, Roland A. Chatterton School, and Norman J. Levy Lakeside School, Donnelly said.
Certified payroll records were filed with the district and allegedly signed by Dana Petrizzo as the company’s vice president, she said.
The pay rate recorded on the payroll records was $44 per hour for “hazardous construction laborer” and $37.44 for “a construction laborer.” The actual hourly pay provided to employees was only $35 per hour and employees were paid mostly in cash, Donnelly said.
The correct prevailing wage rate under state labor laws during this time period for a hazardous material laborer was $52.70 per hour in wages and benefits and $68.96 per hour in wages and benefits for a construction laborer, the DA said.
The weekly payroll was delivered to the worksite by Demasco or by company president Nicholas Barnett, who also served as a supervisor on the Merrick project, she said.
Additionally, between June 2021 and September 2021, the company performed work on a project at the Oceanside School District, specifically at Oceanside High School. Payroll records filed with the school district, and signed by Petrizzo, recorded a rate of pay of $44.00 per hour for hazardous construction laborer” and $37.44 for “construction laborers,” Donnelly said.
Employees were paid $35 per hour in cash and sometimes by check. Payroll deliveries were made by Demasco or the site supervisor, Barnett, the DA said.
The correct prevailing wage rate under state labor laws during this time period for a hazardous material laborer was $52.70 per hour in wages and benefits and $74.70 per hour in wages and benefits for a construction laborer, Donnelly said.
On Feb. 21, 2020, BJA Renovations, with Barnett as president, prepared and filed a quarterly combined withholding, wage reporting, and unemployment insurance return with the state Department of Taxation and Finance and the state Department of Labor, recording that the total wages paid to their 15 employees between July 1, 2019, and September 30, 2019, totaled $52,904.
The certified payroll records for BJA Renovations Corp. during that same period recorded a total payroll of more than $185,000, paid to four employees listed on the return and eight employees not listed. The underreporting of the actual payroll defrauded the Unemployment Fund by $63,036.80, Donnelly said.
The company’s president, Nicholas Barnett, pleaded guilty on March 4, 2025, to failure to pay the prevailing wage and falsifying business records and was sentenced to three years’ probation and a five-year debarment.
The company’s vice president, Dana Petrizzo, pleaded guilty on March 4, 2025, and was sentenced to a conditional discharge.
On Aug. 21, 2025, BJA Renovations Corporation was sentenced to a three-year conditional discharge and is also prohibited from performing any public works projects in the state for five years.
