Home Improvement Contractor Gets Prison Time In $80K+ Ripoff; Accused Of Shoddy, Incomplete Work On 88-Year Old Widow's Home

From the Office of the New York Attorney General:

• Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo [...] announced the sentencing of a Western New York home improvement contractor who repeatedly pressured an 88-year-old widow into paying more than $80,000 for home improvements that were never done or “grossly substandard.”

• Bryan Boone, 47, of [...] Kenmore [dba Urban Residential Maintenance], was sentenced to the maximum 2 1/3-to-7 years in prison [... and] ordered the defendant to pay full restitution. Boone pleaded guilty to grand larceny in the third degree (class D felony) on November 7, 2008.

• “This so-called home improvement contractor was nothing more than a con artist who thought he could get away with ripping off an 88 year-old widow,” said Attorney General Cuomo. “My office will aggressively pursue crooked contractors who prey on New Yorkers, especially the elderly and vulnerable.”

***

• Boone’s work 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. Besides 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.

For the entire press release, see Home Improvement Contractor Sentenced To Prison For Scamming Western New York Senior Out Of More Than $80,000 (Bryan Boone pressured 88-year-old widow into writing more than 70 checks over seven months for ‘grossly substandard’ work).

For more on homeowners left in the lurch due to actions by builders/contractors, go here, go here, go here, go here, and go here.

Go here, here, here, here, here, and here for other posts on elder financial abuse. FinancialAbuseOfElderlyAlpha StiffingContractorsTheta