The wife of former North Hempstead Democratic party leader Gerard Terry resigned from her town post Friday after she was cited by the town’s ethics board for failing to disclose her debts.
Concetta Terry, the Town of North Hempstead deputy clerk, violated the town’s ethics code by omitting debts from four financial disclosure filings, the town’s Board of Ethics ruled earlier this month.
The town board approved her resignation at its meeting Tuesday night.
North Hempstead Town Supervisor Judi Bosworth declined to comment on Terry’s resignation.
The ethics board found “reasonable cause to believe” Terry, the wife of embattled former North Hempstead Democratic Committee Chairman Gerard Terry, did not list debts on financial disclosure forms in 2007, 2008, 2012 and 2013, according to a memo Town Attorney Elizabeth Botwin sent to the Town Council on May 12.
Terry specifically failed to disclose debts over the $5,000 disclosure threshold on her original and amended town financial disclosure forms in those four years, and “understated the category of a debt” on her second amended forms in 2012 and 2013, the memo says.
Ethics code violations are punishable by a fine of up to $10,000, but town officials have not said if she would be fined.
The ethics board made the ruling at its May 9 meeting, the memo says, two months after it started investigating her for an “alleged omission” on her filings.
The ethics board’s investigation started after a Newsday report revealed in late January that Gerard Terry carried a $1.4 million state and federal tax debt while earning more than $200,000 a year in six government jobs. He and Concetta Terry live in Roslyn Heights.
The memo indicates Concetta Terry failed to disclose her own debts and did not address her husband’s, which do not appear on her financial disclosure forms dating back to 2006, town records show.
Gerard Terry was arrested April 11 and charged with one felony count of state tax fraud. Prosecutors have said more charges could be coming.
Terry was special counsel to the town and the attorney for its Board of Zoning Appeals under a legal services contract that was not renewed at the end of 2015. He resigned as chair of the North Hempstead Democratic Committee in February.
In March, the town widened the pool of officials required to file financial disclosure forms and this year will enforce the 25-year-old requirement that leaders of town political committees file them. Terry never made a filing as a town contractor or party leader.
Relatives of town employees who also hold town jobs, as well as outside contractors who “directly advise boards,” must now file disclosure reports.
The town board also approved Tuesday a job transfer for Deputy Chief of Staff Nick Guariglia to Terry’s former post as deputy town clerk.
Town Councilwoman Dina DeGiorgio was the lone board member to vote against Guariglia’s transfer, citing an increase of pay of more than $10,000.
Terry made $80,371 annually, while Guariglia will be making $91,000.
Also at the meeting, the board passed a resolution to hold a public hearing regarding the regulation of vape shops.
De Giorgio said the board had no intention of banning vape shops, but wanted to ensure proper regulations were in place.
“Our concern is not so much that we ban these shops, because we can’t, but that they’re located in proper places and that their placement be regulated much in the same way that we regulate restaurants or bars or other kinds of establishments where people consume alcohol or something like that,” she said.
De Giorgio said she had been working with the town attorney’s office to draft legislation.
She said some of the regulations the board was considering would require applicants to go to the town’s Board of Zoning Appeals for a conditional-use permit to operate a vape shop and to require the shops to be certain distances from schools, playgrounds and residential neighborhoods.
De Giorgio also said the board was looking into regulating what types of advertisements vape shops can use as some can be appealing to children.
“E-cigarettes and vaping products and things like that are only allowed to be sold to adults, you can’t be a minor, but some of these shops and retailers are using advertising that would be sort of encouraging children to use e-cigarettes and vaping products,” she said.
