Homeowners are not getting justice for contractor's rip-off

Chester — A home improvement contractor has ripped off some local residents and, despite a bureaucratic quagmire, they’re not giving up hope of getting their money back. Just as there was promise the victims would get restitution in exchange for a reduced sentence for the contractor, Michael Ritter, he declared bankruptcy. “The system” isn’t doing much of anything to help them, say Ann Marie Woods of Chester and Sandra Trautman of Florida, N.Y. It all began for Michael and Ann Marie Woods in September 2003. They’d contacted Ritter after seeing deck work he’d done on a neighbor’s house on Maple Street. The Woods wanted to add three rooms to their house, at an estimated cost of $73,000. In October 2003, the Woods wrote checks to American WSG for $14,150 and $5,850. Revisions were necessary when the Chester village building inspector found problems with the plans for the foundation, plumbing, and electricity. Opting instead to renovate their garage, the Woods said Ritter tried to get them to go back to the original plan, saying he’d already paid some subcontractors. In a state police deposition dated April 19, 2004, Ann Marie Woods wrote: “I told him no to the addition again and he said that out (of) the kindness of his heart he would apply a $15,000 credit to the new contract for the garage and that I would only lose $5,000. I explained to him that he was breaking the law by not putting my money in an escrow account to which Michael said — go ahead and get (an) attorney because my attorney knows all the loopholes and you are not getting your money back.” The police report states that a windows, siding and glass company, American WSG, LLC, in Brookfield, Conn., deposited the $14,150 check, keeping $1,000, and giving the rest back to Ritter in cash. (The check had been deposited into the account of Maurice Moriarty.) Woods checked with the county clerk and, “low and behold I came up with the fact that yes, (Maurice Moriarty) lived in Orange County … with 10 judgments against him by the New York tax commission.” The owner of a pub in Yonkers, New York, Ireland’s Own Bar, confirmed taking the other check, for $5,850, from Michael Ritter, “giving him a certain percentage of cash on the spot and subsequently deposited the check,” according to an Aug. 16, 2004, state police report. Before asking for the change in plans, the Woods started to get a bad feeling something was wrong. For example, Michael Woods’ cousin, in the architectural field, had helped by writing out some plans. Yet, say the Woods, Michael Ritter didn’t seem able to read them. But before then he seemed very convincing. Bureaucratic nightmare Sandra Troutman gave Ritter a deposit of $7,000 in April 2003. The Trautmans, who live on Wheeler Road in Florida, wanted work on vinyl siding, gutters, windows, shutters, insulation and a porch. Ritter wanted a $7,000 deposit for work that would total $17,400, saying he needed the deposit because he’d been “ripped off” in the past. Ritter told them to write the check out to cash so that he could obtain a builder’s discount when he bought the materials. After weeks of excuses for work not yet begun, the Trautmans began to feel uneasy. Ritter showed up for a total of one and a half hours of work, in which he tore up their front porch. For licensing documentation, Ritter presented Trautman with a “Business Certificate” under the name of American Improvement Co. at 279 Eatentown Road in Middletown, where Ritter lived with his mother, Marlene Ritter. That document, although bearing a notary public signature and the stamp of the Orange County Clerk, is not a license, as they later discovered. The Trautman’s check was signed by Marlene Ritter. Soon, Ritter wasn’t returning phone calls. Steven and Sandra Trautman retained a lawyer, Lloyd B. Tamarin of Middletown, who called Ritter’s attorney in May 2003, advising that Ritter must pay the Trautmans $6,600 by June 6, allowing $400 as payment for the destruction of the porch, although he left it in a shambles. But that went nowhere. The nightmarish bureaucratic odyssey began in earnest. Trautmans also called attorney Peter Barlet, who advised them to call the county district attorney’s office and the state police, which they did. They filed a complaint with the State Attorney General Bureau of Consumer Affairs and Protection office, which transferred the case to their regional office in Poughkeepsie. That bureau sent them a letter saying there had already been mediation in the case, that, “it would duplicate government resources for us ... to intervene on your behalf.” Since there was no attempt by any agency to mediate, they did not know what that was supposed to mean. They also contacted the Better Business Bureau, which tried to get Ritter to respond, but gave up: “Despite such repeated efforts,” the bureau wrote them, “we are compelled to close this matter in our files.” ‘You can’t get blood from a stone’ Ritter was arrested on an unrelated charge in May 2004 and charged with driving while intoxicated after smashing into a Middletown police car that was chasing him for speeding. He was also charged with unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle, reckless driving and leaving the scene of an accident. An incident report in August 2004 names Ritter as a suspect in a claim of “Larceny-Other,” with a date of March 10, 2004. The police report further states the intent of the Orange County Assistant District Attorney Rob Ostrov to charge Ritter with one count of scheme to defraud in the second degree for the incidents involving Woods and Trautman. And it stated that Ritter had agreed to plead guilty and make restitution to victims as part of a plea package involving all charges against him. That report also states that a New York State investigator confirmed that Trautman’s check “was deposited into an account in the name of Marlene Ritter on April 30, 2004. It states “the money was withdrawn from the account shortly after being deposited and then the account was closed.” The bank confirmed that the Woods checks had also been cashed, the largest being for $14,150. In December 2004, Ritter pleaded guilty to the charge of scheme to defraud and sentenced to one year in jail. He was ordered to pay restitution of $27,000 to Trautman and Woods. Woods wrote to Judge Van Der Meulen of Village of Chester Criminal Court: “I’ll probably never collect on this judgment, but he still received a plea bargain as a direct result of it.” Woods said a letter to the district attorney went unanswered, and she was kept in the dark about hearings where Ritter would appear. The only agency helping her at this point was the state police, primarily Investigator Patrick Beyea of Troop F and an Albany crime victims official. “It is now almost six months since his sentencing and I have been contacted by no one from the D.A.’s Office,” she wrote him in May. And then came insult to injury: On May 3, 2005, Michael Ritter filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. Woods and Trautman received notification letters from U.S. Bankruptcy Court, naming them among some 64 creditors. In May Woods wrote Assemblywoman Nancy Calhoun: “Someone dropped the ball and he was allowed to plea bargain on his word alone to pay us back at some unspecified time in the future.... He also gets to wipe out our judgments as well as all of the other judgments.... I want to know how this is possible??? No one seems to want to help us or can even answer this question.” Trautman made a similar complaint to Assemblywoman Annie Rabbitt: “This deal was made only because they waited so long to pick him up that he was arrested for something else so they made their life easy by giving him a plea bargain.” Woods asked a bankruptcy trustee whether a restitution order can be discharged. The trustee said he could not offer legal advice and advised her to contact a bankruptcy attorney. “The D.A.’s office has been completely useless,” Woods said. “The (Assistant) D.A. in this case, whenever I call him, there’s nothing he can do, he pushes me off someplace else. And everybody else I go to tells me the D.A.’s office should handle this.” Village of Chester Mayor Susan Bahren sent Woods a letter recommending she contact the Orange County Bar Association, which Woods said she did with no result. “He has already been discharged from bankruptcy,” Woods said. “It is only our judgment that is being fought because nobody else stood up. So all of his debt right now is wiped out.” Ritter took from the Woods $20,000 they borrowed from a bank, which has put a lien on their house. She is paying back the $20,000 plus interest, in addition to the money she paid for legal and filing fees. “So for the next 10 to 12 years I have a monthly payment of $400 a month, approximately $180 of it goes to interest. And he is right now, as we speak, debt-free, except for this restitution order.” And Trautman said the Assistant District Attorney told her “you can’t get blood from a stone.” ‘The burden of proof is on us’ Ritter is in Gowanda State Correctional Facility. He’s expected to be released around February 2006. Unlike the people he defrauded, he is eligible for a pro bono attorney. “For legal services purposes, if you’re a homeowner, you’re not eligible, right off the bat,” Woods said. “So, now I’ve been in search of trying to get an attorney to help us file the motion for summary judgment being that the pro bono attorney basically bailed.” Trautman and Woods showed up at a meeting of Ritter’s other creditors in bankruptcy proceedings. The court trustee told them nobody’s shown up at a proceeding for 15 years. “Well we’re showing up,” Woods said. “He wouldn’t take the time to look at the paperwork and it should have been stopped right there,” she said, referring to Paul Banner, trustee for the court. “I have been paying taxes into the system since I was 14 years old and had my working papers,” Trautman said. “The system is going against me.” Trautman said Ritter was supposed to get a year in county jail. She asks — where’s the year in county jail he was supposed to get for not paying? “Now I call the parole board and they don’t have a clue about the scheme to defraud,” she said. Woods said officials at the correctional facility where Ritter resides “have no idea that he’s a fraud or that he has this criminal restitution order. I had to track the parole board down and make them aware that we exist and that this criminal restitution order exists and I had to send them copies.” “Supposedly because he’s fighting it the burden of proof is on us, which is unbelievable,” Trautman said. “He’s sitting in jail for a crime and admits in his paperwork that he did take the money and that he is in jail to scheme to defraud. So now he goes to court and he says, oh, I didn’t steal anything, I didn’t do anything. So now we have to prove it all over again.” Woods said that according to bankruptcy code, anyone who has committed fraud should not be eligible for bankruptcy. Bankruptcy is an option for people who have acquired their debt honestly, she said. Assemblywoman Nancy Calhoun sent a letter to Phillips on Woods’ behalf, but nothing resulted. And U.S. Rep. Sue Kelly wrote to the attorney general, who basically told Woods that she’s taken it as far as it can go. About a week ago was a bankruptcy hearing. The tireless victims would really appreciate some help. The phone number to the Eatontown Road residence of Marlene Ritter has been disconnected.