NYS Contractor Pleads Guilty To Grand Larceny For Squeezing $80K+ From 88-Year Old Widow For Shoddy, Substandard Home Repairs

From the Office of New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo:

• Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo [last month] announced the guilty plea of a Western New York home improvement contractor(1) who repeatedly pressured an 88-year-old widow into paying more than $80,000 for home improvements that were never done or done in a way described by outside experts as “grossly substandard.”

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• According to court papers, in October 2007, [Bryan] Boone, doing business as Urban Residential Maintenance, contacted the victim by phone offering to make inexpensive repairs to her Cheektowaga home. She accepted and over the next seven months he made repeated requests for payments. Using fear and intimidation,(2) Boone was able to convince the victim to write him a total of 70 checks for $82,158.

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• All of the work Boone did was careless and incomplete. [...] Independent experts who reviewed Boone’s work at the request of the Attorney General’s office declared it to be grossly substandard and of little value to the homeowner. They estimated the cost of labor and materials to be between $11,000 and $13,000.(3)

For the NY AG press release, see AG Cuomo Secures Guilty Plea From Home Improvement Contractor For Scamming Western New Senior Out Of More Than $80,000 (88-year-old widow pressured into writing more than 70 checks over seven months for work described by outside experts as ‘grossly substandard’).

Go here for other posts on other home improvement contractors hammered by the NY AG's office.

(1) According to the press release, Bryan Boone, 47, of Kenmore, pleaded guilty to Grand Larceny in the third degree (class D felony). He faces up to seven years in prison.

(2) Reportedly, the homeowner told investigators: “When I would complain about how the work was progressing, he would sometimes get very angry and assure me the work was first-rate. As I felt intimidated, I always relented. Similarly, if I questioned a demand for payment, he would sometimes become angry and I would relent.”

(3) Besides doing the shoddy and incomplete work, Boone also failed to meet the legal requirements for home repair work, including obtaining the proper permits, providing a written contract to the consumer, and depositing payments into a trust account, according to the NY AG press release. Cuomo hammers contractors