Sutton magician sentenced to 6-plus years in prison for child porn offenses
EAST/VALLEY

Homeowners question why Uxbridge home contractor Enoch Mayfields avoids harsher penalties

Susan Spencer
Susan.Spencer@telegram.com
Aly Hassan and his wife, Sarah Mostafa, of Quincy hired United Construction Service in 2015 to remodel and expand their kitchen and replace the roof. The couple are suing for defective work and unfair trade practices after Mayfields quit the job. [T&G Staff/Susan Spencer]

The house construction project at 24 Cortland Way in Grafton was, by all accounts last summer, a mess.

Retaining walls had crumbled, causing runoff from the steep hillside to wash into the street, clog storm drains and create ice sheets in winter. Erosion, improper drainage and defective installation threatened the stability of the partially built house foundation.

The homeowner had run out of money, and architects and engineers who worked on the project had quit or been fired, according to town officials.

After a survey board determined the property was “unused, uninhabited, open to the weather and a danger to surrounding properties,” selectmen last August ordered the structures demolished and the site repaired.

Atasha R. Matthew, 35, who had purchased the lot for $78,000 in December 2014 with dreams of building a reasonably priced modular home in the suburbs for her family, lays the blame largely on the contractor she hired to prepare the site, install the foundation and connect utilities.

That contractor, Enoch Mayfields, 49, of Uxbridge, has left a trail of complaints and lawsuits dating back more than a decade.

Mr. Mayfields has, alone or with his partner Karrie Brown, operated under a string of business names, including United Construction Service, Reliable Remodeling Corp., BBSC Corp. and Benben Stone Communication Corp., among others, according to state and court records.

“I put my future there and it’s all gone,” said Ms. Matthew, in an interview. She paid United Construction Service $83,000. “Our world became upside down because of that one stupid thing I did - to give my son a better home.”

An analyst for the state police, Ms. Matthew said she wished she’d been more cautious when hiring a contractor she found through Craigslist three years ago.

“Check the references. One hundred times, check them,” she said. “Just don’t trust them. That’s what I gave to Enoch: My trust.”

DOZENS OF COURT CASES

A thorough background check on Mr. Mayfields, Ms. Brown and affiliated companies would have revealed dozens of lawsuits and revocation, denial of or other violations of home improvement contractor registrations in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut, as well as complaints to consumer protection agencies in those states.

But because nearly all of the claims in this region against Mr. Mayfields and Ms. Brown have been civil matters, dealing with financial and construction disputes, the pair have not faced jail. Fines and penalties have been assessed, and liens put on Mr. Mayfields' home listed as 316 Crownshield Ave., Uxbridge. They have shielded themselves from creditors through bankruptcies.

Mr. Mayfields told a reporter that he had only walked away from one job, in Quincy, because he was threatened.

He blamed the Grafton structural problems on the homeowner, who he said wanted the house in a different location, and he said town officials approved his work.

“When it comes to clients, I bend over backwards,” he said.

He added that on his projects, “all the subs (contractors) all got paid.”

Clients who were upset, he said, were those that wanted more without wanting to pay him.

Although he no longer works for himself, Mr. Mayfields said he does carpentry work for others.

"She has done nothing wrong. There is no evidence to support she did," James P. Ehrhard, a lawyer representing Ms. Brown in her Chapter 7 bankruptcy proceedings, said in an interview.

"She may be the titular owner of it (Reliable Remodeling Corp., doing business as United Construction Service), but not involved in the day-to-day aspect of it," he said.

While a handful of lawsuits concern home improvement contracts, many of the claims in Massachusetts courts are for financial matters in which Mr. Mayfields failed to pay. Typically, Mr. Mayfields also failed to show up in small claims court for those cases, so judgment was entered against him following default.

More than a decade before Mr. Mayfields ran into problems with home improvement services and failure to pay in New England, he was found by Wisconsin courts to have repeatedly written bad checks.

In June 1999, Mr. Mayfields was sentenced in Dane County Circuit Court to four years in prison after pleading no contest to felony bail jumping. He received probation and orders to pay costs and restitution for no contest pleas on two counts of theft for false representation of more than $2,500, according to court records.

Two other charges of felony bail jumping, one charge of felony issuing of worthless checks greater than $1,000 and one misdemeanor charge of issuing worthless checks of less than $1,000 were dismissed but read into the record.

Mr. Mayfields spent nearly two years behind bars until February 2001, according to the Wisconsin Department of Corrections.

SMOOTH SALES PITCH

Neither Ms. Matthew nor others who talked to the Telegram & Gazette about hiring Mr. Mayfields’ home improvement businesses through online listings such as Craigslist, Thumbtack or Angie’s List, knew about his history.

“He’s really good talking with people and I hired him,” Ms. Matthew said.

Mr. Mayfields obtained a building permit from the Grafton Building Department for new construction for placement of the modular home in March 2015.

He did not have a construction supervisor license, which state law requires for overseeing construction of one- or two-family homes. Instead, the Massachusetts CSL of Kevin LaFleur, principal of Camelot Homes in Tilton, New Hampshire, which manufactured the house that was to go on the foundation, was sent by Camelot Homes to the Grafton Building Department.

Mr. LaFleur did not return calls for comment about Mr. Mayfields using his CSL.

Mr. Mayfields also did not have a home improvement contractor registration certificate, which is required to work on an existing one- to four-unit owner-occupied home in Massachusetts. Ms. Brown, however, obtained an HIC in her name, which was presented to Ms. Matthew.

Soon after work started, the Grafton Conservation Commission got involved when sediment from construction activities eroded beyond the site boundaries.

The town issued several cease and desist and stop work orders between July 2015 and December 2016, from the Building Department and Conservation Commission.

Neal B. Mitchell Jr., the town’s consulting engineer, wrote a memorandum in October 2015 to Tin Htway, alternate building inspector, regarding the need for construction control, or daily site supervision, after a meeting with Mr. Mayfields, the project’s retaining wall engineer Richard Bushnell and architect James Gilmore.

Mr. Mitchell wrote in part: “I was horrified (at a site inspection) by what I saw the contractor doing.”

He continued: “This structure could actually fail if the proper procedures are not followed, and if the proper safeguards are not followed."

Mr. Mayfields quit the project after officials said a new retaining wall needed to be installed, Ms. Matthew said.

A retaining wall did collapse on Jan. 12, 2017, while workers were reconstructing it, in violation of cease-and-desist and stop-work orders issued by Mr. Htway in December 2016, according to a letter to Ms. Matthew from Town Planner Joseph Laydon.

Shortly after that, Ms. Matthew sent a text message to Mr. Htway indicating that she was not continuing with the project.

In October 2016 Ms. Matthew filed a civil lawsuit in Worcester Superior Court against Richard E. Bushnell, doing business as R&M Engineering Consultants; Enoch Mayfields, doing business as United Construction Service; and Karrie Brown, doing business as United Construction Service.

A consumer protection complaint was also sent to the state attorney general.

Ms. Matthew agreed to dismiss the claim against Mr. Bushnell.

The case against Mr. Mayfields and Ms. Brown is pending.

Meanwhile, the property at 24 Cortland Way is in foreclosure, Ms. Matthew said.

“Before I acquired that house I had a 780 credit rating. I had a lot of money in the bank,” Ms. Matthew said. “After that - nothing.”

She’s working to rebuild her finances, but after two years of house problems and being financially drained, the biggest impact was the stress.

“Emotionally, that’s unmeasurable,” Ms. Matthew said.

DEMOLITION AND RETALIATION

When Aly Hassan, 40, of Quincy read newspaper reports about the Grafton house, it sounded all too familiar.

He and his wife, Sarah Mostafa, decided to remodel their kitchen and replace their roof in early 2015.

They found Mr. Mayfields online at Thumbtack.com and contracted with him for $35,000 for a roof and full kitchen, including $11,000 for appliances and cabinets.

“Our biggest mistake was to choose that guy,” Mr. Hassan said. “He tells you what you want to hear.”

Mr. Hassan said Mr. Mayfields requested $18,000 up front, more than half the total contracted price.

He learned later that under state law, no more than one-third of the total can be required as a down payment, except for costs related to special-order materials.

Once work started, Mr. Mayfields kept asking for more money, including for services not required nor specified in the contract. The couple had other questions about the work being done as well.

After heated discussions about the project and payment expectations, Mr. Mayfields texted Mr. Hassan that he was leaving the project.

According to a complaint filed with the state Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation, at that time Mr. Mayfields had begun to strip the garage roof and had torn down a wall to open the hallway walls into the garage. The walls were left open without insulation. In addition, the garage roof was supposed to be made of rubber but shingle had been installed instead. The kitchen was less than 50 percent complete and most of the roof work had not yet been done.

Mr. Hassan and his wife had paid Mr. Mayfields more than $26,000.

The couple sued Ms. Brown, who was listed as the president of United Construction Service, in Worcester Superior Court in October 2015, a month before she filed for bankruptcy.

According to court records, the couple paid more than $47,000 to repair and complete the project, bringing their total expenditures, including $26,000 paid to United Construction Service, to more than $73,000.

The case is also pending.

In August 2016, however, Mr. Hassan and Ms. Mostafa filed an adversary proceeding in Ms. Brown’s bankruptcy case in Central Division of U.S. Bankruptcy Court. Their complaint argued that Ms. Brown incurred debt to them through false pretenses, false representations or fraud and is nondischargeable.

Ms. Brown, in her response to the complaint, raised a provocative statement made by Mr. Mayfields when he left the project.

According to court records, she wrote: “And furthermore, the defendant’s project manager, Enoch Mayfields, was personally threatened by the plaintiffs that they were going to cut his head off if he didn’t complete the extra work.”

Mr. Hassan and Ms. Mostafa’s lawyer wrote, in a motion to strike scandalous material from the record, “It is a crude reference to the writer’s belief that Mr. Hassan and Ms. Mostafa are Muslims, and that Muslims are likely to threaten such violence.”

Affidavits of Mr. Hassan and Ms. Mostafa, denying they made such statements, were attached.

The judge allowed the motion to remove reference to the threat.

In an interview, Mr. Mayfields said after he told Mr. Hassan over the phone that he couldn’t work with all his demands, Mr. Hassan told him Americans were arrogant and then threatened him.

“His comment was, he was a sleeper and wait till he wake up. He laughed with his evil laugh,” Mr. Mayfields said. “All of us Americans will get our head cut off.”

Mr. Hassan said Mr. Mayfields contacted the FBI. In June 2015, Mr. Hassan spoke with an FBI agent at his work, but said he never heard back from them.

The Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulations, however, on Aug. 26, 2015, ordered an administrative fine of $4,000 against Ms. Brown, holder of the home improvement contractor registration used for the project, and suspended her HIC registration for six months.

Mr. Mayfields, whose HIC registration had expired, was issued a reprimand.

The experience has affected Mr. Hassan’s life so “I don’t trust no one,” he said. “I have to search (online) everyone before I meet them.”

Mr. Hassan, an account manager for Securitas USA at Partners HealthCare, and his wife, who works in finance for the state, said they were able to take out loans to keep afloat.

When Mr. Hassan’s lawyer asked him what he wanted from his lawsuits, with the likelihood he wouldn’t see any money, he said, “I told him, ‘I want justice.’ ”

CRIMINAL COMPLAINTS

The Quincy case involves civil litigation and administrative proceedings. But it is also a rare time that criminal charges were brought against Mr. Mayfields' and Ms. Brown's businesses.

Mr. Mayfields was arraigned in Quincy District Court on Oct. 9, 2015, on charges of forging Mr. Hassan’s signature on the building permit. The case was dismissed May 10, 2016, upon Mr. Mayfields’ request, court records show.

Later in 2016, Quincy Police Sgt. Mark Foley prepared two incident reports documenting offenses by Mr. Mayfields and Ms. Brown, including larceny from a building and two counts of larceny over $250 by single scheme.

Also, police wrote, the building permit application submitted by United Construction Service listed the construction supervisor license of Anthony Meola, owner of a construction and excavation business in Weymouth. Mr. Meola told police that his CSL number was used without his knowledge or permission. He said the number was printed on his business card, which he had previously given to Mr. Mayfields when the two discussed potential excavation work.

Prosecution has not gone forward. Quincy police did not return calls for comment and a spokesman for the Norfolk District Attorney did not have further information.

Mr. Hassan said the judge dismissed his criminal complaint as a construction dispute.

REVOCATION AND MORE FINES

In November 2015, after a second complaint hearing was held against Mr. Mayfields and Ms. Brown, the Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation immediately revoked their home improvement contractor registrations.

Administrative fines were assessed of $5,000 for Mr. Mayfields and $7,000 for Ms. Brown, according to the hearing record.

Mr. Mayfields had also used Mr. Meola's construction supervisor license without his permission, but Mr. Meola’s involvement with the case was dismissed with no penalties, since he had no connection to the project.

The complaint stemmed from a contract signed in September 2014 with United Construction Service to build a 1,000-square-foot addition on the house of Justin Parker’s father-in-law in Malden, for $119,000.

“We got beat for $50,000-something,” Mr. Parker said. “It’s mind-boggling how he got away with all that.”

Mr. Parker said Mr. Mayfields “knocked walls down in the house for no reason.”

After he and his fiancee wrote him a check for $36,000 for material they had picked out at Home Depot, they “never saw him again.” Work stopped by November 2014, according to the state complaint.

Mr. Mayfields said in an interview that Mr. Parker was “in cahoots” with Mr. Hassan and that Mr. Parker began stalking and harassing him.

“I stole from nobody. I never stole from no one,” he said.

The state hearing officer found that Mr. Mayfields and Ms. Brown’s contract violated the HIC Act by not including required details about payments, schedules, permits and consumer protection provisions.

Administrative penalties were assessed for violations including operating without a certificate of registration, material misrepresentation in the procurement of a contract, conducting a residential contracting business in any name other than the one in which Ms. Brown is registered, and deficiencies in the contract.

“This hearing officer also notes that there is a history of previous violations on the part of both respondents, which aggravated this penalty,” Hearing Officer Jennifer Maldonado-Ong wrote.

Mr. Parker said that his father-in-law was awarded $7,000 in losses for the down-payment gift, after Mr. Mayfields and Ms. Brown failed to appear in Malden District Court.

“It really put us in a tailspin for a couple of years. We paid money to the bank on the money we borrowed. I was living at my mother’s house,” Mr. Parker said.

“What gets me is the court system allows this to operate. That’s why a guy like that will be a success,” he continued. “I had no illusion of getting a penny back. I want to keep it from happening to anyone else.”

STATE PROSECUTION

The attorney general's Consumer Protection Division works with the Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation to investigate and if warranted, prosecute the worst offenders, according to a spokeswoman for the attorney general.

In 2013, an unlicensed home improvement contractor, Arthur J. Amaral, Jr., 53, of Taunton, was sentenced to one year in the Bristol County House of Correction with five years of probation after his sentence, for stealing from multiple homeowners. The judge also ordered Mr. Amaral to pay more than $132,000 in restitution to victims.

Judge D. Lloyd Macdonald sentenced his wife and business partner, Laurajo Amaral, 46, also of Taunton, to two years of probation.

And in November 2017, Attorney General Maura Healey sued an unregistered Everett home improvement contractor for allegedly accepting more than $350,000 from homeowners for home improvement projects but failing to complete the work.

The lawsuit, filed against Richard Rolon, doing business as The Design Consultants, in Suffolk Superior Court, seeks consumer restitution and civil penalties for violations of the Massachusetts Consumer Protection Act and the Home Improvement Contractor Act.