Plumber Allegedly Pocketing $5K From Homeowner w/out Doing Any Work Is No 'Civil Matter'; DA Treats Transaction As Home Improvement Trust Fund Ripoff

From the Office of the Rockland County, New York District Attorney:

• Rockland County District Attorney Thomas P. Zugibe [] announced that Jerry Cioffi (DOB 02/21/69) of [...] Thiells, New York has been charged with one count of Grand Larceny in the Third Degree, a class "D" Felony. Cioffi, a plumbing contractor who conducts his business under the company name of Cioffi Services, Inc., is alleged to have stolen $5,000 from a Nyack homeowner with whom he had contracted to construct a sewer connection from her home to a main sewer line.

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• According to the charges, the victim contracted with Cioffi in April, 2010 to construct the sewer line. The customer gave the defendant a down payment of $5,000, which represented half of the $10,000 total cost of the project.

• The defendant allegedly assured the victim that he would procure the applicable permits and complete the work on or about May 1, 2010. In reality, Cioffi applied for no permits and performed none of the work by the time the victim contacted the County Department of Consumer Protection in late September.

• Cioffi is accused of walking away from the job and failing to provide an accounting or return of the victim’s money.(1)

For the Rockland County DA press release, see Home Improvement Contractor Arrested For Scamming Nyack Resident Out Of Thousands Of Dollars.

(1) According to the press release, the defendant will be prosecuted for Grand Larceny through application of the New York State Lien Law, which mandates that, upon acceptance of funds in connection with a contract for improvement of real property or home improvement, those funds become a trust, which can be used only to pay for costs incurred in the performance of that homeowner’s project. The use of that money for any other purpose is a larceny under the Lien Law. Further, the contractor must maintain separate ledgers for each job for which he has contracted. By failing to provide an accounting of how the money had been used and by not returning the money upon the demand of the consumer, the contractor violated both the Penal Law and the Lien Law.