Pennsylvania appeals court upholds conviction, jail sentence for Centre County contractor
May 10 update: A Clearfield County judge revoked bail May 8 and Scott Good was taken into custody. He is detained at the Clearfield County Corrections Facility.
A statewide appeals court upheld Tuesday the jail sentence of a Centre County contractor who stole tens of thousands of dollars worth’ of wages and benefits from his workers.
Goodco Mechanical owner Scott C. Good, 60, was unsuccessful in his attempt to have the state Superior Court vacate his misdemeanor theft convictions and sentence. The ruling opens the door for Good to serve at least four months in jail.
It was not immediately clear if he plans to file additional appeals.
“We are thoroughly reviewing the opinion and considering whether there are any avenues to seek further review,” defense lawyer Sarah Hyser-Staub wrote in an email. “We obviously disagree with the result, but we have nothing further to say at this time.”
Good was charged in September 2019 after a nearly two-year grand jury investigation. He was accused of directing employees working on public construction projects to record some of their hours at a lower pay rate.
The state’s Prevailing Wage Act requires all contractors working on projects that receive state or federal funding pay the same wage rates. The wages and benefits change depending on the classification of the worker.
A certified electrician who worked 10 hours, for example, would be directed to report nine hours of work as an electrician and one hour as a laborer. The latter are paid about $20 less per hour. Some workers told Pennsylvania prosecutors Good would ask them to change their time sheets or have someone change it for them.
The grand jury also found Goodco — which employs about 60 workers — reduced the amount the company had to pay toward fringe benefits by crediting itself hourly vacation benefits that employees didn’t use. As a result, prosecutors wrote, worker were paid at an incorrect rate and had money withheld from their benefits.
The thefts totaled more than $64,000 in wages and benefits over the course of at least five years. The scheme allowed Goodco to reduce labor costs and bid for projects with lower wage and fringe benefits costs, prosecutors wrote.
The prosecution was the first of its kind in Pennsylvania.
Clearfield County President Judge Fredric J. Ammerman rejected the first two plea deals. The first would have required Good to paid about $75,000 in fines, while the second would have required about $65,000 in restitution and served five years of probation.
Neither required jail time.
Ammerman said incarceration was warranted to “send a message” to other contractors. He described white-collar crime as a “pet peeve.”
Good pleaded guilty in March 2021. He was sentenced one month later to a maximum of two years, less four days in jail and 200 hours of community service. He also paid more than $64,000 in restitution, while his company was fined $10,000.
Good raised eight challenges in his appeal, ranging from an argument that the state law was unconstitutional to Ammerman’s sentence being the result of bias and prejudice. All were rejected by a unanimous panel of three Superior Court judges.
“Although the court said that it is ‘tough’ on white-collar criminals, the court stated at the same conference that it had no grudge against Good as an individual. The court’s tone was consistently one of dispassionate reflection,” Superior Court Judge Maria McLaughlin wrote in a 56-page ruling. “Nor do we find the court’s statements indicate that it had decided from the outset that it would sentence Good to incarceration. Although the court stated it rejected the first two plea deals because a term of incarceration would be warranted to ‘send a message’ to other offenders, the court also explained that it had not predetermined that it would impose a sentence of incarceration.”
The Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office declined comment. Good has remained free on bail pending the outcome of his appeal.
