State College Contractor Pleads Guilty to Wage Theft Charges

A State College-based mechanical contractor pleaded guilty on Friday to charges that the company underpaid workers’ wages and benefits for prevailing-wage jobs over five years.

Goodco Mechanical pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count of theft by failure to make required disposition of funds and owner Scott Good pleaded guilty to five counts of the same charge, according to a statement from Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro on Friday.

The company will pay more than $64,000 in restitution as part of the plea agreement. A formal sentencing is scheduled for April 26.

“This guilty plea will help boost income for working Pennsylvanians and puts companies on notice that we will hold them accountable if they illegally underpay workers,” Shapiro said in a statement. “This kind of theft undercuts honest businesses and means thousands of people get less money than they are legally owed each and every payday. It’s wrong, it’s illegal, and my office is investigating wage theft to help everyone who has ever been cheated out of their full paycheck.”

Goodco and Good were initially charged in 2019 with more than 200 counts following a 21-month grand jury investigation prompted by allegations that they violated the state’s prevailing wage law by paying skilled trade workers at a lower rate than required on a $16 million PennDOT project in Clearfield County and public projects in other counties. Most of the charges were dropped as part of the plea.

It was the first time prosecutors pursued criminal charges in a prevailing wage matter, which is usually handled through administrative procedures outlined by the Department of Labor and Industry.

“This is a complex case that is the first of its kind in Pennsylvania,” Good’s attorney, Sarah Hyser-Staub, said in a statement on Friday. “While we have significant disagreements with many of the charges, we were able to reach agreement with the Office of Attorney General on these six misdemeanor charges. We look forward to making a full presentation to [Clearfield County] Judge [Frederic] Ammerman at sentencing. Mr. Good’s primary focus now is to ensure the continued operation of his business, which employs more than 40 people.”

According to Shapiro, Good directed journeyman electricians and plumbers to record portions of their work hours as lower paid laborers. The company also was accused of crediting itself hourly vacation benefits employees did not use in order to reduce the amount the company had to pay toward fringe benefits

The Pennsylvania Prevailing Wage Act requires contractors on projects that receive state or federal funding to pay the same hourly wages and benefits based on region and job classification.

Good founded Goodco Mechanical in 2008.