Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Police: Fake contractor stole from 87-year-old
Margaret Dorman liked her neighbor’s new impact resistant windows so much, she thought she’d try and get the same deal for the Tamarac home she shares with her daughter. But a detective says the 87-year-old Dorman was duped by an unlicensed contractor who stole $21,000 of her savings.
“I trusted him,” said Dorman, who lives on a pension after retiring as a teacher’s aide at Plantation Park Elementary School.
A few days before Dorman met Niraj Sethi, 46, of Oakland Park, he had been let go from BNT Services in Fort Lauderdale, the company that installed her neighbor’s windows, according to an arrest report.
Sethi sold her a $25,000 installation, with $21,000 due immediately. He then charged her $18,500 after she sold him a 1987 BMW for $2,500, the report said.
Dorman gave Sethi a check for $18,500, payable to his company NS Dynamic Marketing Group,
Broward Sheriff’s Detective Michael Linville said.
But, Dorman said, Sethi never gave her an itemized list of costs, and all the prices he quoted were in round numbers.
“There was always an excuse,” said Melanie Dorman, 60, Margaret’s daughter. “‘Oh that’s $1,000,’ or ‘Oh, that’s $2,000.’ Everything was a thousand dollars. There was never any other amount, and we never saw anything.”
Margaret Dorman went back to her neighbor to look at his receipts and, thinking Sethi was still working for BNT Services, called the company and began asking questions.
Tom Zeschke, president of BNT Services, said Thursday he is going to install Dorman’s windows at a deep discount and also will try to get his manufacturer to rush the order.
“We had absolutely nothing to do with what happened,” Zeschke said about his former employee. “All I know is that she called my company, and she needed help. She won my heart, and I said whatever we gotta do to make her right, we’re gonna make it right.”
The Sheriff’s detective said his investigation found that after Dorman paid Sethi, he placed a $15,341 order with a Pompano Beach wholesale company for Dorman’s windows and paid a $7,750 deposit.
And then Sethi allegedly began spending the money “on everyday expenses, Uber rides, restaurant expenses, bar tabs, entertainment, stuff like that,” Linville said. Sethi spent the money in a month, the report said.
And when Dorman began asking questions about her deal, “[Sethi] did not have the funds to fulfill the order [with the wholesaler],” Linville said.
On Aug. 30, Sethi was recorded on video and audio Linville set up in Dorman’s home. She asked Sethi about their contract; he told her it was a verbal one, an arrest report said.
On Thursday, the windows manufacturer reimbursed Dorman.
“Everybody has been so wonderful to help me,” Margaret Dorman said. “Because I didn’t know which way to turn.”
Sethi was arrested at his Oakland Park home Wednesday on suspicion of committing grand theft from a person older than 65, and being an unlicensed contractor.
Sethi had been on probation for 2015 convictions of unlicensed contracting, grand theft and failing to secure workers’ compensation insurance coverage.
On Thursday, Broward County Judge Kim Theresa Mollica ordered Sethi held on a $110,000 bond.
Linville said the public should research contractors and those who represent them online or through the state Department of Business & Professional Regulation.