Huntington Contractor Indicted for Allegedly Forging Islip Building Permit

Robert Cortese, 39, of Huntington, now faces up to seven years in prison after a Suffolk County grand jury indicted him and his company, Tool Time Construction, Inc., for allegedly presenting a forged Town of Islip building permit to a homeowner who paid him to build a pool and pool house in Great River.

Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond A. Tierney announced the indictment, charging Cortese and Tool Time Construction with Criminal Possession of a Forged Instrument in the Second Degree, a class D felony. Both defendants were arraigned on March 31, 2026, and released under applicable law.

According to prosecutors, Cortese contracted with the homeowner in May 2021, promising to handle all necessary permits through the Town of Islip. When the homeowner repeatedly pressed for documentation, Cortese allegedly produced a document he represented as an official permit. Prosecutors say that document was forged and the required permits were never actually obtained.

The legal exposure does not stop with Cortese. A pool built without a valid, inspected permit may contain code violations that a town inspector never had the chance to catch: improper electrical bonding near water, faulty drainage, or structural deficiencies in the pool-house framing. Those problems follow the property, not the contractor. When a home changes hands, missing permit history typically surfaces during a title search, which can derail closings or force expensive remediation. Homeowners' insurance policies routinely exclude claims tied to unpermitted work, meaning any injury or damage connected to that pool could land entirely on the owner.

"Homeowners give their trust and significant sums of money to contractors they hire," DA Tierney's office stated, making clear that prosecutors would pursue criminal charges when that trust is violated.

Cortese faces a second wave of charges as well, related to operating as a home-improvement contractor without a valid license. Court documents indicate a separate court date was scheduled for those violations, suggesting a pattern prosecutors found worth pursuing on its own track.

The mechanics of the alleged scheme also raise a question about how easily a forgery could slip past a homeowner. The victim in this case asked multiple times and still received a fake document, with no obvious way to spot the fraud. Town permit portals exist precisely to close that gap. Anyone hiring a contractor for work in the Town of Islip can call the Building Division's permits desk directly at (631) 224-5466, located at One Manitton Court in Islip, weekdays from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. For work in the Town of Huntington, the Building Department handles permit verification at (631) 351-2821. The step takes five minutes: ask the contractor for the permit number, then call the issuing town yourself to confirm that number is active and lists your address.

Contractors who deflect permit requests for weeks, cite vague delays at town offices, or hand over documents lacking official watermarks are showing red flags worth investigating before another nail goes in.

Suffolk County Consumer Affairs licenses home-improvement contractors and maintains a searchable complaint history. Call (631) 853-4599 to verify a contractor's license status or (631) 853-4600 to file a complaint. Suspected forgery warrants a direct call to local law enforcement or the DA's office, and this indictment signals the county is prepared to treat that call seriously.

The case against Cortese and Tool Time Construction now moves to Suffolk County Court, where discovery and pretrial proceedings will determine what comes next.