Bklyn contractor indicted for Midwood scam
Defendant bilked Midwood couple out of $700K in 2012 scheme to fund lavish lifestyle: DA
BY COLIN MIXSON
A Kings County contractor
faces up to 15 years in prison
for allegedly scamming a Midwood
couple out of a whopping
$700,000 he used to fund a lavish
lifestyle of designer clothes
and high-class restaurants.
The 45-year-old defendant
— himself a Midwood resident
— was arraigned Tuesday
on charges including
second-, third-, and fourthdegree
grand larceny, in addition
to second-degree criminal
possession of a forged
instrument, and Supreme
Court Justice Danny Chun
ordered him held on $50,000
bail, according to District Attorney
Eric Gonzalez.
The contractor’s scheme
kicked off in December 2012
when a Midwood couple
hired him to preform some
minor repairs on their twostory
home in, but the scope
of work soon expanded to include
excavation work, construction
of a massive sixstory
extension and balcony,
and the installation of a new
elevator, among other additions,
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Gonzalez said.
The next fi ve years saw virtually
no work done of the various
jobs the contractor had
agreed to preform, but that
didn’t stop him from writing
more than 300 checks to pay
for environmental reviews, architectural
designs, and construction
permits that prosecutors
claim were all complete
fabrications.
Instead, the defendant
spent the victims’ hard
earned money on high-end
merchandise from designer
brands, including Coach, Oscar
de la Renta, and Burberry,
and meals at upscale eateries
such as Tao and the famed
Russian Tea Room, according
to prosecutors, who say that
of the $700,000 the contractor
expensed, only $9,000 was
ever spent on actual building
supplies.
Throughout the nearly
half-decade they were getting
ripped off, the victims
continued to live at the same
Midwood home that prosecutors
claim was not being renovated,
but the contractor used
various schemes, including
showing doctored receipts
and blueprints, along with
sending copies of faked emails
from government agencies to
dupe his clients into signing
more checks, according to a
law enforcement source.
The case was investigated
by the Gonzalez’s Investigation
Bureau, along with detectives
out of the 70th Police Precinct
in Midwood, and is being
prosecuted by the district attorney’s
Fraud Bureau.
A Midwood contractor was arraigned on charges related to an alleged scheme to defraud a couple out of
$700,000 in Brooklyn Supreme Court on Aug. 13. Photo by Colin Mixson
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