Former Huntington maritime director Dom Spada has reached a plea agreement on charges he falsified paperwork related to a Civil Service exam.
But no information about the terms of the deal or how it was reached was available. “Pursuant to a plea offer conveyed under the previous administration, Spada did plead guilty. However, the plea and the sentence are sealed so by statute we are precluded from disclosing the details of that agreement,” Tania Lopez, a spokeswoman for District Attorney Ray Tierney, said Thursday.
Spada was indicted and arrested in February 2021. He had resigned a week before his arrest as maritime director.
He had faced up to four years in prison on a felony charge of falsifying information on the exam to become a bay constable. He initially faced charges of Offering a False Instrument for Filing in the First Degree, a class E felony; Making a Punishable False Written Statement, a class A misdemeanor; Falsifying Business Records in the Second Degree, a class A misdemeanor; and Conspiracy in the Fifth Degree, a class A misdemeanor.
Then-District Attorney Tim Sini said at the time of Spada’s arrest that he had falsified his work experience for the Civil Service test, and conspired with someone else to corroborate his claims. Sini, a Democrat, was defeated in November by Tierney.
Spada became the part-time maritime director in March 2019 after the town fired Edward A.T. Carr, and full-time director in June 2020. He also was a trustee in the Village of Huntington Bay, harbormster in the town of Islip, an assistant chief of the Halesite Fire Department, and held a private job.
In May 2019, HuntingtonNow.com asked the Suffolk County Civil Service department about a letter challenging Spada’s right to take the bay constable exam. Stanley Pelc, the county’s director of examinations, replied, “We investigated the matter and have determined that the Bay Constable candidate did meet the minimum qualifications.”