JUNE 29, 1998

"SCOTTISH TRAVELERS" PLEAD GUILTY IN SCHEME TO DEFRAUD ELDERLY HOMEOWNERS; HOMEOWNERS TO BE REIMBURSED

Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown today announced that three men previously arrested and charged with bilking 14 elderly Queens, Bronx and Brooklyn residents of $462,300 in a phony home improvement scheme have pleaded guilty to the charges and will be ordered to reimburse their victims when sentence is imposed on July 13th.

District Attorney Brown said, "Under the terms of this disposition the homeowners who were defrauded by the defendants will be made whole. The monies the victims lost through the cold-hearted trickery and deception of these men -- members of a group known as the Scottish Travelers -- will be returned to them beginning with $300,000 restitution to be paid on the day of sentence and the balance of $162,300 to be paid within two years. The defendants will also be prohibited by the court from engaging in any home improvement work in the future. They will also spend an additional four months in jail and five years on probation."

District Attorney Brown identified the defendants as Alexander I. Davis, 24, of 427 East 54th Street, Elmwood Park, New Jersey, and James and Richard Keith, who are 26 and 29 years old, respectively, and live at 19 Clarendon Place, Hackensack, New Jersey. They pleaded guilty today to Scheme to Defraud in the First Degree before Acting Supreme Court Justice Joseph Grosso.

In pleading guilty the defendants admitted operating a scheme to defraud metropolitan area homeowners of amounts ranging from $5,000 to as much as $106,000 for unnecessary re-wiring, re-roofing and structural repairs that were not, in fact, done but only appeared to have been done.

"For example," said District Attorney Brown, "in July 1997 the defendants, traveling door to door in Flushing, managed to hoodwink an 81-year-old resident of Murray Street by telling her that her home needed extensive re-wiring. The victim paid the defendants $46,000 for the job which, it was later determined, consisted of spray painting the existing electrical cables and wires in the basement with silver gray paint."

District Attorney Brown said that the investigation leading to the defendants arrests on April 23, 1998 was conducted jointly with the New York City Police Department's Special Frauds Unit under the command of Lieutenant Robert Groth and the overall supervision of Deputy Inspector Robert A. Martin, Commanding Officer of the Special Investigations Division. The New York City Department of Consumer Affairs headed by Commissioner Jules Polonetsky assisted in the investigation.

The arrests were carried out by Detectives Ralph Aiello and Robert Geist, Michael Minero, Joseph Croce and Richard Dillon of the Special Frauds Unit.

Assistant District Attorneys Krystallo Halikiopoulos-Hoffman and Diane M. Peress of the District Attorney's Economic Crimes Bureau, which is under the supervision of Assistant District Attorneys Michael J. Mansfield and John R. Mechmann, were in charge of the prosecution under the overall supervision of Executive Assistant District Attorney for Investigations Robert D. Alexander.