Two men accused of $100,000 home-improvement scam in Maynard. What police say happened
MAYNARD — Two Wayland men are alleged to have posed as home improvement contractors to scam a resident out of $100,000, authorities said.
Maynard police arrested Hughie Antony O'Donoghue, 24, and Michael Nevin, 21, last week after an investigation that took place over several months, Police Chief Michael Noble said.
"The scam is they basically go around looking for dilapidated residences and then look up who the homeowner is," the chief said. "They go to the home, and they give them a name of someone else on the street. They say they just worked on so-and-so's house and noticed you had some work to be done."
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In the case of the Maynard resident, the two suspects — Noble said neither has a home improvement license — agreed to do some work for an affordable price. However, they then began destroying the interior of the home, claiming to find more problems and asking for more money.
"They create part of the problem by ripping things down and say they found water damage or something else and they say it's going to cost another $10,000," said Noble. "They don't ask for the large sum all at once, they do it incrementally and the homeowner feels like they have to do it."
The town Building Department estimated that the original job the men agreed to complete should have cost about $5,000, Noble said.
Suspects also drew the suspicion of Brockton police
Earlier this year, Brockton police investigated the pair. They and contacted Maynard police about them possibly conducting a scam in their town and police found the resident and confirmed he had paid them. But the suspects had since stopped working were no longer responding to the resident, Noble said.
Police began searching for the pair in June but could not locate them. The suspects used several different aliases, including combining their names. Police found a residence in Wayland in which the suspects lived, but they had just been evicted for not paying rent.
Police on Tuesday tracked down the pair to a hotel in Braintree, where they were arrested, Noble said.
Police later discovered the two men had warrants from Ireland for allegedly running the same type of scam, Noble said.
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Maynard police charged both men with larceny of more than $1,200 from a person older than 60; conspiracy to commit a crime; and being an unlicensed home improvement contractor.
Both men were ordered held on $15,000 bail after their arraignments last week in Concord District Court. If they post bail, they have to surrender their passports and a GPS monitoring bracelet.
A clerk at Concord District Court would release neither the names of Nevin's or O'Donoghue's lawyer nor their next date.
Norman Miller can be reached at 508-626-3823 or nmiller@wickedlocal.com. For up-to-date public safety news, follow him on X @Norman_MillerMW or on Facebook at facebook.com/NormanMillerCrime.
This article originally appeared on MetroWest Daily News: Wayland men charged in $100K home improvement scam in Maynard
