8 On Your Side has discovered roofing contractor Neal Scoppettuolo is responsible for 17 liens filed against roofing customers in three counties.
We’ve been investigating Scoppettuolo’s sketchy business practices and ties to notorious swindlers for weeks.
A roofing supply company, Beacon Sales, filed court liens against homeowners in Hillsborough, Pasco and Collier Counties in 2017 and this year due to supplies that Scoppettuolo’s company, Summitwood Works LLC, and its predecessor, Pace Approved Services LLC, failed to pay for.
The way it works under Florida law is that if roofing companies don’t pay vendors – in this case, the shingle company – homeowners get stuck with the bill even if they have already paid the roofing company in full for the work.
If the homeowners don’t settle the debt, then the shingle supplier can file for foreclosure and they could end up losing their homes.
In one case, we uncovered a $13,565 lien filed against an 84-year-old man in Naples who insists he never agreed to a roof replacement, nor did he receive one. In other words, he was billed for supplies he never got on a roof job that Scoppettuolo personally notarized. The attorney for Beacon immediately dropped that lien after 8 On Your Side explained that the homeowner never received any roofing supplies.
Scoppettuolo has repeatedly refused to comment on current business practices, such as sending mass mailers to Pasco residents falsely claiming they had defective roofs.
Scoppettuolo lives with two convicted swindlers – Carlton and Stacy Dunko – who made a fortune ripping off nearly 100 customers in six Tampa Bay area counties in a previous roofing scam uncovered by 8 On Your Side.
Scoppettuolo has also hired Carlton Dunko and his partner in that previous scam – Frank Martin Pureber – as sales and marketing consultants for some of his current home renovation ventures. Scoppettuolo has described Dunko and Pureber as “Godly men” who deserve a second chance.
Both men formerly ran NBRC Construction and ended up in prison for organized fraud after an 8 On Your Side investigation first uncovered their shady practices in 2013. Scopputtuolo insists they are not involved in his roofing business now and work as consultants for some of his other home improvement ventures. They are not allowed to be in the roofing business under the terms of their ongoing state probation.
Tonight at 5:45 on News Channel 8, we’ll dig deeper into Scoppetuolo’s past and present business practices and his recent brush with the law during a DUI arrest when Tampa police found him passed out at the wheel of his truck with a 9mm handgun in the cab.
Investigators later measured his blood alcohol at more than twice the presumed level of illegal intoxication. On a police video, Scoppettuolo insisted he was sober and protested his arrest. When they asked for his license Scoppettuolo offered his Guy Harvey card instead. Officers put him in handcuffs and took him to jail after he failed the field sobriety test. Scoppettuolo thought he passed.
