Comptroller rules in D’Agostino’s favor

After nearly seven years the New York State Comptroller's office ruled that Valley Stream-based lawyer Albert D’Agostino was an employee not an independent contractor of the school districts and municipalities he worked and can keep the retirement money he accrued.
In a letter dated Jan. 14, Deputy Comptroller Thomas Nitido wrote: “Please be advised that upon further review of the facts related to your service with the Valley Stream Union Free School District, Nassau County, Lawrence Union Free School District, North Merrick Union Free School District, Town of Hempstead and the Village of Valley Stream, and in the light of the court decisions in the Matter of Mowry v. DiNaploi … and the Matter of Brothman v. DiNapoli …, the Retirement System is withdrawing its March 17, 2010 determination.
“The Retirement System was a party to a number of lawsuits based on similar facts,” said Nikki Jones, a spokeswoman for the comptroller. “Upon further review of the facts of Mr. D’Agostino’s case, and in light of those decisions, we withdrew the original determination. Jones said that the comptroller’s office “regularly reviews cases about employee and contractor status.”
In 2010, state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli determined that D’Agostino was an independent contractor. In a press release at that time, DiNapoli said that D’Agostino was “wrongly reported” as an employee by “numerous school districts and local governments.” The comptroller suspended D’Agostino’s pension benefit — he had collected nearly $606,000 from August 2002 to March 2008 — and was then seeking to recoup the money. No money was taken from D’Agostino’s pension. Last year, the comptroller’s office paid some of D’Agostino’s legal fees.
D’Agostino said that the cases cited by the comptroller “upheld the principles we asserted all along in terms of the March 2010 letter. “My reaction to the final determination was I knew it had to happen at some point because there were a number of early decisions in my favor,” he said. “The court held that my constitutional right to due process was violated and I knew I was in the right.”

The hearing that D’Agostino demanded in a July 2010 letter was never granted. He believes the situation was a political witch hunt where certain officials and even journalists were looking for people to investigate.
“The objection to me working for these school districts and government agencies was I had a law practice,” D’Agostino said. “I developed material that many of my predecessors were also members of the retirement system dating to the 1940s.”
Currently, D’Agostino’s law practice, Minerva & D’Agostino, works for several school district but they are now paid on an hourly basis, D’Agostino said. “This took a terrible toll on me and my family,” he said.