Illegal Immigrants Involved in Home Improvement Scam
January 12th, 2010 by admin
http://www.gazette.net/stories/01062010/wheanew182632_32551.php
A Virginia man remains at large while another man is awaiting extradition to the county in connection with widespread home-improvement scams that have cost county residents more than $500,000 over the past several years.
Police have issued an arrest warrant for Leslie Alberto Irias, 39, of the 200 block of Pershing Avenue Northwest in Leesburg, Va. He and Mario Ramirez-Cardenas, 25, of no fixed address, are accused of defrauding a 55-year-old Wheaton woman and her family out of more than $90,000 while posing as licensed home-improvement contractors. They have also allegedly committed other scams across the county and in Virginia, according to Montgomery County Police Detective B. Mengedhot.
Ramirez-Cardenas is awaiting extradition from Kansas to Montgomery County. He was arrested in Kansas last month on domestic violence charges, according to Cpl. Dan Friz, a media relations officer with Montgomery County police.
On Nov. 11, 2006, the Wheaton woman and her husband agreed to give Irias and Ramirez-Cardenas a down payment of $90,000 to tear down a house on a property they owned at 12323 Dewey Road and build a new home in its place.
The couple first met Irias while he was working on a neighbor’s house and asked him if he could build them a larger home. The couple laid out plans for a five-bedroom house to Irias and took out a second mortgage to afford the construction. Irias originally asked the couple for the full $200,000 cost up-front but eventually agreed to a smaller down payment, said the husband, who owns and lives in another house with his family on nearby Big Bear Court.
“It was our dream house,” said the husband, who asked that he and his wife not be named. “Now our dreams [went] away.”
Irias and Ramirez never began construction on the Dewey Road house. After digging a hole in the couple’s front yard and ceasing construction on their neighbor’s house, Irias stopped all work, claiming to his clients that he was ironing out permit issues, according to charging documents filed in the Montgomery County Office of Consumer Protection.
The Wheaton couple became suspicious and quickly discovered that the men had defrauded several other residents in the area. When the couple tried to contact Ramirez-Cardenas and Irias, they found that the contractors’ phones were disconnected and that both the men and their construction company had disappeared, according to the charging documents.
In June 2007, the wife eventually called police, and detectives from the county’s Financial Crimes Section pieced together similar complaints from the Office of Consumer Protection to realize the men had conducted a full-scale scam.
Detectives determined the men had carried out the same type of fraud scheme at least five times in Northern Virginia, Germantown, Wheaton, Sandy Spring and Silver Spring. The men are responsible for defrauding residents out of more than $500,000 — and likely more, police say.
“That’s just the stuff that’s reported,” Cpl. Friz said in an interview. “So who knows what the guys have gotten out of other people over the years.”
On Dec. 23, Ramirez-Cardenas was arrested in connection with domestic violence charges against his girlfriend in Wichita, Kan. Wichita authorities discovered the fraud warrant Montgomery County Police had obtained in July 2007, and Ramirez-Cardenas is now being held without bond awaiting extradition proceedings.
Irias remains at large, and both men have been featured on the TV show “America’s Most Wanted” and its accompanying Web site.
Ramirez-Cardenas does not have a defense attorney listed in online court records, and a Maryland number listed for Irias was disconnected.
Irias, a Nicaraguan immigrant, was last spotted in Virginia selling fake IDs and traveling in a white van as a painter, according to an “America’s Most Wanted” case file. County police believe he transferred large sums of money to Nicaragua before fleeing Maryland, according to charging documents.
County officials say home-improvement scams in general have become more prevalent as home contracts dwindle and homeowners hunt for deals.
Phony contractors can get away with a large scheme over several years, because most home-improvement scams aren’t reported to police, Mengedhot said.
“A lot of times, people get embarrassed that they gave money to somebody for whatever, and then it falls through,” he said.
The cases that are reported are usually treated as civil matters or complaints in the Office of Consumer Protection. While the office can prosecute the scams, and consumers can file a suit, detectives don’t step in to investigate until police recognize a pattern of fraud, Mengedhot said. By then, the scammers have usually left town, leaving behind paper trails of fraudulent P.O. boxes and phone numbers, he said.
“The bad guys are concealed within the consumer law or the civil law, where they can hide by claiming they have a contract,” he said.
And it’s relatively easy to present a false, yet official-looking, certificate to unsuspecting residents, said Ralph Vines, an administrator with the Office of Consumer Protection. That’s because the county’s Circuit Court issues business licenses to applicants for a fee, which legally enables someone to conduct business in the county, such as selling their services as a home-improvement contractor. However, Vines said a county business license is not the same as a professional license to actually build a home, which is issued by the state and requires rigorous testing.
Vines said the Office of Consumer Protection is in talks with the Circuit Court to discern how a business license is used and handed out. In the meantime, there are steps consumers can take to analyze a potential contractor’s license, such as contacting the Office of Consumer Protection.
The county police’s Financial Crimes Section, which can be reached at 240-773-6330, would like to hear from anyone who may know the whereabouts of Irias. Callers may remain anonymous.
Police recommend several tips to avoid home-improvement scams, such as calling the Montgomery County Office of Consumer Protection at 240-777-3636 to find out if other residents have reported complaints about a specific contractor. Residents can also call the Home Improvement Commission in Baltimore at 410-230-6309 to verify a contractor’s license.
Police also recommend that consumers ask a lot of questions and make sure the contractor provides a Home Improvement Contract that both the consumer and contractor sign before work begins or money is paid. Consumers can check a specific license with the Maryland Division of Licensing and Regulations records at www.dllr.state.md.us.
For more information regarding home improvement and hiring a contractor, visit the Montgomery County Government website at www.montgomerycountymd.gov and click on “Departments,” then click on “Consumer Protection.”
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