Rockville Centre contractor pleads guilty to defrauding customers

Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown announced on July 5 that a 49-year-old Rockville Centre contractor has pleaded guilty to grand larceny and other charges for home improvement scams perpetrated on Queens and Long Island residents.

“The defendant has pleaded guilty to having defrauded homeowners out of hundreds of thousands of dollars by taking money for construction and renovation work and leaving behind a trail of unfinished renovation projects,” Brown said. “In one instance, a Queens homeowner who had become confined to a wheelchair had her kitchen completely demolished and for nearly a year has been forced to prepare her meals in the microwave or on a hotplate because her kitchen was never rebuilt.”

Brown added that defective or incomplete home improvement repairs were among the top consumers’ complaints to his office. To avoid being a victim of a home repair scheme, consumers should request and actually check a contractor’s references and check with the proper agencies to ensure the person they are hiring is indeed licensed.

Burrell, also known as James Gray, who worked under the name of a company called “A Team Property Services,” pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree grand larceny and two counts of first-degree scheme to defraud before Queens Supreme Court Justice Barry Kron, who indicated that he would sentence Burrell to an indeterminate term of 1½ to 4½ years in prison at sentencing on July 20.

According to court documents, Burrell entered into contract with nearly a dozen Queens and Long Island residents to do demolition, renovation and/or construction on their properties between February, 2009 and July, 2015 and accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in payment. In all cases, the work was never completed, leaving the residents with either unfinished projects or projects that were never started.