Chasing fugitive contractors

The unlicensed contractors who land on the state's list of "Ten Most Wanted" are supposed to be so deeply in hiding that investigators who from the Nevada State Contractors Board haven't been able to find them.

But they still have their pride.

Every once in a while, in fact, one of the unlicensed contractors on the Top 10 list calls Fred Schoenfeldt to complain that the state's action is hurting his business.

Schoenfeldt, the supervisor in the special investigation unit of the contractors board office in Reno, can do little more than sigh and hope that the call provides a hint about the wanted contractor's whereabouts.

The state board's Web site, www.nscb.state.nv.us, lists the Top 10 Most Wanted unlicensed contractors, with separate listings for northern Nevada and the Las Vegas area.

Among the northern Nevada fugitives, a couple have managed to avoid capture for years.

Ronald M.

Jones, for instance, has been sought since 1998, when a Reno Justice Court issued a warrant for his arrest for unlicensed contracting.

Taliauli Kaipelea Mau had been on the lam since mid-2003 until he was arrested last week on warrants alleging he acted as an unlicensed contractor.

Schoenfeldt and his team of three criminal investigators all of them former police officers usually are searching for about 30 unlicensed contractors at any moment.

The contractors who land on the state's Top 10 list, he says, usually are wanted on multiple felony warrants that allege crimes such as construction fraud or diversion of funds.

The contractors board keeps up a steady drumbeat of press releases whenever contractors are added to the Top 10 list, hoping that the public will spot members of the Most Wanted list and turn them in.

If only it were that easy, Schoenfeldt says.

In the couple of years since the contractors board launched the Top 10 Most Wanted list, only a couple of arrests have resulted from tips from the public.

More commonly, Schoenfeldt says, arrests come after oldfashioned investigative work tracking a suspect through his friends, the places he hangs out, the work that he's done.

"It's really hard work," the investigations supervisor says.

Sting operations in which contractors board investigators pose as property owners seeking bids on projects sometimes reap arrests when unlicensed contractors show up in search of business.

And investigators in other states particularly California keep track of Nevada's Top 10 list and are quick to call if they think they've nabbed an unlicensed contractor working across state lines.

Tracking down bad guys who move from city to city is complicated, however, because unlicensed contractors aren't folded into the national database of wanted criminals.

And that means, says Schoenfeldt, that some law enforcement agencies are slow to make arrests after contractors board investigators track down a suspect.

In Washoe County, where the district attorney and sheriff 's office has joined with Associated General Contractors, the contractors board and the attorney general's office to battle unlicensed contractors, problems are few.

"They're really helpful, and they stay on top of our cases," Schoenfeldt says.

Still, the caseload in the Reno investigative office is growing.

"The public is becoming more aware of us and making the complaints," Schoenfeldt says.

But the rising number of complaints also results from property owners' willingness to use unlicensed contractors, or their failure to check for licenses.When the property owner is burned, the only recourse is a criminal complaint.

And as the workload increases, so does the number of serious frauds.

Not too many years ago, Schoenfeldt says, about 5 percent of his team's work involved felony cases.

Today, the number is closer to 25 percent.

Preventing business owners' DIY surprise Thinking about painting the outside of your store or putting a new roof on some rental units as a do-it-yourself project? Don't.

You'd be violating state law and acting as an unlicensed contractor.

Although state law allows for homeowners to work on their houses without getting a contractors license, there's no exemption for business owners to do their own work at commercial locations.

That applies to investment properties as well as commercial or industrial establishments.

A handful of business owners in northern Nevada are unpleasantly surprised by the law each year, say representatives of the Nevada State Contractors Board.