Publication Date: September 7, 1998
© Gannett Suburban Newspapers
By Bill Dentzer
Staff Writer
They came to Putnam for peace and quiet amid the sparsely populated wilds of the state's fastest growing county. What they found instead, they now say, was an unscrupulous home builder who parted them from both their savings and their dreams.
Now, a dozen homeowners -- some still waiting for their homes -- are after the man they say fleeced them of more than $450,000 combined. Subcontractors and suppliers, owed thousands themselves, have filed liens to collect their debts.
The homeowners have taken their complaints to the Putnam County Office of Consumer Affairs, the county sheriff and the District Attorney's office. And on July 22, they met in Poughkeepsie with an investigator from the state Attorney General's Office.
The contractor, John P. Cleary, has since started another business, Cleary Excavating, in northern Fairfield County, Conn. He blames his problems on one customer who he says scared the others into withdrawing from contracts, which put his company in financial straits.
But Cleary's version is contradicted by the tales of woe his customers tell. Four of them recounted how Cleary, a builder of modular homes who was earlier based in Stormville, Dutchess County, promised them completed homes in three to four months for $130,000 to $230,000.
He took their deposits and set start dates for construction. But troubles began before a single tree was cleared, if any were cleared at all, his former customers say. The homes were never finished and, in one case, never begun.
Cleary's accusers include an elderly couple, the Rollos of Queens, who cashed in a lifetime's savings for a retirement home, and Al Carinci, a 79-year-old recent widower, who wanted a custom colonial for himself and his son and daughter to escape rising crime in his Bronx neighborhood.
The Beliveaus, a family of four from San Diego, sought a fresh start back East. And a bachelor, Barry Buzzurro of Mahopac, planned a new home where he could rebuild his life after a broken relationship. Each bought 1- to 2-acre plots in subdivisions in Putnam Valley and its environs and hired Cleary to build new homes on them.
Cleary, they say. lied to them, cheated them and, in some cases, left them with debt to subcontractors. Seeking both criminal and civil redress, they have hired lawyers and taken their specific accusations to law enforcement.
''Suing him would be another waste of $5,000 or $10,000," Buzzurro said. "By going after him criminally, we will find out if he has any money."
More than civil matters
At first glance, the complaints from Buzzurro and the others "were all basically -- sorry to say -- civil matters," said Putnam County Sheriff's Office Investigator Anthony Nappi. But, he said, "We're going over this again with the District Attorney's Office."
Cynthia Kasnia, an assistant attorney general in the Poughkeepsie office, would neither confirm nor deny that an investigation was underway -- the office's standard practice.
Cleary's lawyer, Kenneth Stenger of Wappingers Falls, said there was "no question that certain people have filed complaints with the AG's office."
But Stenger, who was retained after Cleary's customers started complaining, said the matters were "contractual disputes."
In a telephone interview, Cleary blamed all his problems on Buzzurro, a Con Edison substation manager who hired Cleary to build a home on Oscawana Heights Road in Putnam Valley.
Cleary said Buzzurro, angered by delays in the construction of his house, deliberately set out to destroy his business. He declined, however, to answer specific questions about his other customers' allegations, referring those questions to his lawyer.
"We tried to sort this out with Mr. Buzzurro several times," Cleary said. "The guy was the biggest whack job in the world. What he did, he went around to all these people and of course it escalated. It actually put us out of business. He got these people so riled up and so it wound up that they got scared. We lost about 10 jobs because of it."
'Promises the world'
Cleary's other customers say differently. So does a former employee, Joseph Romanello, a carpenter-cum-law student who signed on with Cleary in August 1995 to help pay for his studies at Pace University School of Law in White Plains.
Romanello stayed with Cleary for more than two years, in part, he said, because Cleary "promises you the world, like he did to all his customers."
"It was amazing the way he could work," Romanello said. "He was a con artist. He knew everything about the business, except how to finish a job."
Buzzurro acknowledges that he has made Cleary's undoing his mission. He is seeking $30,000 from Cleary for work he says Cleary never did. At the entrance to Buzzurro's property, a 4-foot by 8-foot painted sheet of plywood proclaims the site of "another unfinished home" by Cleary and warns potential customers away from him and his now defunct company, Victoria Brook Homes.
"He broke every written and (oral) agreement he ever made with me, and he threatened physical harm," Buzzurro said. "John was a ruthless person, and heartless. What he did to families, he annihilated them financially, physically and emotionally, and people are still feeling that pain."
Buzzurro paid $45,000 for his two-acre lot and closed with Cleary in December 1996 on a $134,200 contract for a two-story modular home, to be completed April 15, 1997. Then, he said, he waited for work to start. And waited.
"I started to realize in March that something was wrong, that little or nothing was done," Buzzurro said.
The foundation of Buzzurro's home was poured and the modular sections secured in late March 1997. Thereafter, little else was done. The scheduled completion date came and went. Cleary, Buzzurro said, was working on the house only four or five days a month.
Angry, Buzzurro began to press Cleary about the delays. He said the conversations became confrontational with Cleary, whom Buzzurro and others described as well-muscled and physically imposing, roughly 250 lbs. and well over 6 feet tall.
Buzzurro said Cleary threatened him in June, when he wanted to discuss problems with in Cleary's office. Cleary, Buzzurro said, later told him he was lucky he did not come to his office because "if I did I would have left in a body bag."
He called state police but did not file a report. After a later threat, he made a complaint with Putnam Valley police and later contacted an investigator with the Putnam County Sheriff's office, which took over Putnam Valley's policing duties when the town police force was disbanded.
Nothing happened with his house for months. During that time, Buzzurro said, he "was trying to give this guy every possible chance to do what he was supposed to do."
But by the end of 1997, Buzzurro lost patience. He filed for and received a general contractor's license, reapplied for all the building permits that had expired for his house and started finishing the job himself. He hired his own contractors to do the plumbing, the electrical work, the septic system and well, and ordered gravel for the driveway. He moved in March 28.
Months earlier, as he wrangled with Cleary, Buzzurro started contacting contractors and suppliers. He has letters from them attesting to debts Cleary owes them for materials and services. One, a cement contractor, wrote back that he was owed $12,000 by Cleary for several jobs.
Several of the chagrined contractors agreed to discuss Cleary as long as they were not identified, saying they feared it would be bad for business. An electrical contractor from Poughkeepsie has placed liens on homes he worked on for Cleary but expects to write off about $4,000 in losses.
"We've dealt with general contractors who played this game before but none have ever taken it to this extreme," the contractor said. "This guy, he's blown off all of our attorneys, just gave them the old song and dance. When you first meet him he's your best friend. When you ask him for money he's your worst enemy."
Buzzurro also tracked down some of Cleary's other customers and found similar experiences. Carinci, the widower, paid $82,500 for a 1 1/3- acre plot on Renee Court in Mahopac. Then he plunked down a $25,000 deposit with Cleary in October 1996. He got nothing more for his money than a roughed-out floor plan.
"Nothing ever happened," Carinci said. "They told me house was going to be ready in June. Then Labor Day. Then, `You'll be in by Thanksgiving.' They never did anything to the property. I don't even think they know where it is."
House not finished
The Rollos -- Joseph, a 77-year-old retired butcher, and Concetta, a 71-year-old former seamstress -- had long owned a vacation bungalow on Seneca Road in Putnam Valley. They decided to renovate it from the ground up and make it their permanent home.
They signed a contract with Cleary in May 1997 with completion promised for September. But the house was never finished. The Rollos, out $115,000 to Cleary, now live in the rented basement of the house they used to own in the Ridgewood section of Queens, their belongings in storage in Yorktown.
Cleary, said the Rollos' daughter, Josephine, "always had a story" for why the work was delayed.
"He kept asking for money, but no work was done," she said. "All we could show for it is a shell. Inside there's nothing."
The Rollos have hired another contractor to finish the house at a cost of nearly $40,000. Their last contact with Cleary was in May, when he wrote them asking for $10,000 to pay four subcontractors and get work going again.
"If checks can be left on jobsite this weekend in an envelope in bathroom shower stall it would be appreciated," Cleary wrote.
The Beliveaus, whom Buzzurro met in August 1997, moved from California the previous summer and decided to spend their $250,000 home budget on completing an unfinished, boarded-up house on a two-acre plot in a subdivision off Pudding Street in Putnam Valley.
They bought the house and the land for $82,000 and, in September 1996, signed a $146,500 contract with Cleary for a top-to-bottom renovation. Completion was scheduled for the end of January 1997. By the end of June, the house was still far from done.
In July, the Beliveaus had to vacate the house they were renting. Already making mortgage payments on their unfinished home, they decided to move in, even though the house still lacked plumbing. They say Cleary walked off the job a month later.
They paid him $156,300 -- $10,000 more than the contract price -- and calculate that he owes them nearly $83,000 for work he never did.
Like Buzzurro, they took on the work themselves. To date, they have spent $36,000 on top of what they paid Cleary and estimate it will cost them another $54,000 before work is complete.
Cleary would not discuss his dealings with the Beliveaus, the Rollos or Carinci. His lawyer, Stenger, said he would not comment "on the merits of these disputes.
"I would comment that the proper forum in which to resolve contractual disputes is a courtroom, not the front page of a paper," Stenger said.
Stenger has challenged the anti-Cleary placard Buzzurro put up on his property, writing to him that it constitutes a form of harassment. Buzzurro's lawyer assured him it is legal.
One man who was going to hire Cleary told Buzzurro he reconsidered after he saw the sign, Buzzurro said.
"And I know it's saved subcontractors from falling into the same trap," Buzzurro added. "I'm not expecting a dime from Cleary. My objective is preventing him from doing this to any other family in New York state. He has no business being in business."