KENNER, La. – Louisiana’s attorney general and local district attorneys have urged storm victims who feel contractors have cheated them to file complaints with their offices. But critics say they authorities aren’t doing nearly enough to bring bad contractors to justice. One woman, Peggy Bradley of Jefferson Parish, said the contractor she hired to fix her home after Hurricane Katrina took $112,000 and left partial repairs that were so inferior they had to be ripped out and redone. She also said all the laws that are supposed to get justice haven’t done a thing. “I feel like I’m going to have a nervous breakdown sometimes, I don’t want to live,” Bradley says. After Hurricane Katrina, she signed a contract with Joe Lucia of Tri Parish Welding and Construction. She said initially he put in a little bit of sheetrock, but it got wet because he put the roof shingles on the wrong way. She said the incompetent roof repairs led to water leaks all over the place. “There was a barrel in here that was full of water from the ceiling,” she said. “All the insulation came off, all the plywood. It got rotten.” The independent engineer she hired to examine Tri-Parish’s work documented 25 pages of repairs that were sometimes so inferior they were dangerous, especially the new leaking roof. “There was so much water in the exterior walls, the water came down to the bottom plate of the building and then worked its way to the inside of the building and the plywood and subfloors had been saturated for so long they were warping,” Michael Gurtler, Independent Engineer said. He told her the insulation and sheetrock the contractor installed would have to be torn out. He also told her the new, uneven stairs were another hazard, which could cause people to trip. Bradley said Lucia vanished, apparently fled the area, after picking up a final check for $6,000 in October 2006. She said she tried to go after the man she thought was Lucia’s associate at Tri Parish Welding and Construction, James Sparacello. “He would come out with Joe Lucia,” she said. “They would come out here together and go over things.” Secretary of State Jay Dardenne has incorporation papers that show James Sparacello and Joseph Lucia were in business together until June 2009. But the name of the firm was Tri-Parish Welding of LaPlace, not Tri-Parish Welding and Construction. When Lucia fled and Bradley demanded her money back, Sparacello said he had nothing to do with the company. Sparacello’s attorney responded with a statement. "Mr. Sparacello categorically denies being a party to, or a beneficiary of, any purported contract between Mrs. Bradley and Joe Lucia, nor has any money paid under any such contract ever been received by Mr.Sparacello, or his company." And Sparacello’s attorney said the checks were made out to Joe Lucia. Peggy Bradley said she feels like she is a victim of outright theft. She filed a complaint with the Louisiana Attorney General’s Office and the Jefferson Parish District Attorneys Office. “Nothing was done. They didn’t get back to me,” she said. “My daughter, she even wrote several letters for me.” The Jefferson Parish District Attorney’s Office says it has no record of the initial complaint from 2006. Bradley said she wrote down the name of the woman she talked to at the D.A.’s Office, Andrea Blalock. The office acknowledged Blalock did work there, up until a couple of months ago. “I’m not here to argue with her. I am here to tell Miss Bradley and people like her that that case since you brought it to our attention, for the first time is being acted upon, and it is currently in the hands of the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office,” said Paul Connick, Jefferson Parish district attorney. “We will vigorously prosecute this case.” The Louisiana Attorney General’s Office says Bradley did call, but it says she did not return the packet it sent her. Bradley says she did return the packet, and someone at the Attorney General’s Office got back to her. “He contacted me several times, he said ‘we’ll try to get in touch with Joe Lucia, find out where he is, we’ll trace him down,’” Bradley said. “That was about a year ago.” Independent Engineer Michael Gurtler said he’s not at all surprised that Bradley’s case may have gotten lost. He said law enforcement at all levels hasn’t done nearly enough to go after contractors who have cheated homeowners. “These people are stealing $100,000 at a crack from people or $30,000 or $40,000,” Gurtler said. “They’re stealing big money, they’re leaving with the money and nobody’s doing anything about it.” A freedom of information request discovered just how many complaints of contactor fraud the Louisiana Attorney General’s Office has received since January 2006, and how many cases it has taken to trial. In the past three and a half years, the office says it has gotten 8,315 complaints, 6,400 of them written reports. It has gone to trial with 28 cases, roughly 1 percent of all the complaints. We try to pick the best cases, and each case represents a number of reports that were filed against a contractor,” said Trey Phillips, with Louisiana Attorney General’s Office. Philips said most cases involve three to five complaints against a single contractor, and a couple involve 12 and 13 complaints. He argues the attorney general should get credit for working up to 100 cases where his staff has made an investigative demand for documents. The attorney general can only prosecute civil cases involving deceptive unfair trade practices and says it needs to see a pattern. “So that means you can come to Louisiana and violate the law three times and get a pass,” Gurtler said. “They only get excited when you have four.” The Jefferson Parish District Attorney says of 225 contractor fraud complaints since January 2006, his office has prosecuted 25 cases. 19 resulted in convictions with restitution for homeowners, one offender was sent to a diversionary program with restitution, four dismissals with restitution and one dismissal because the statute of limitations had passed. But the numbers of complaints could be much higher. Connick acknowledges contractor fraud complaints could be listed under other categories. “Without question, many of these cases are going to be in the category of theft, forgery, issuing worthless checks,” Connick said. “I would say the majority are going to be in the theft category.” Bradley said it took her family, friends, a few temporary workers, plus more than $150,000 in loans and credit-card debt to rip out the bad repairs and finally rebuild her home. Jefferson Parish has finally begun an investigation, three years after Bradley’s contractor, Joe Lucia, fled the area, leaving one of his last know local addresses still vacant in Laplace. The state contractor's board said it found Joe Lucia guilty of working as a contractor without a license. It ordered him to cease and desist after he fled with Peggy Bradley's money. The board said Lucia still has not paid a $28,000 fine.
