Hahn Warns of Home-Repair Scams : Crime: One unlicensed contractor faces trial April 27 in a 54-count criminal misdemeanor complaint.

Spring is a peak time for home repairs and, authorities warn, for home-repair scams as well.

This year, the most ambitious scheme in Los Angeles appears to be one targeting homeowners in Westchester, said Los Angeles City Atty. James K. Hahn.

Hahn earlier this month filed criminal charges against 10 allegedly unlicensed contractors accused of swindling the public. He said the city’s Consumer Protection Unit is investigating other suspected con artists and warned that the scams are occurring year-round.

“Contractors working without licenses . . . generally fall into two categories--people without the skills to pass the test to get a license and fast-talking swindlers out to do nothing but rip you off,” Hahn said in a statement. “Dealing with either type can turn out to be a nightmare.”

Such has been the case, apparently, in and around Westchester, where an unlicensed contractor from Hawthorne named Vili Soakai Laulile, 32, has been soliciting business and collecting money from people for the past year and then disappearing before finishing the job, authorities said.

“He’s figured the routine enough to know who to best target,” said Deputy City Atty. Fay Chu, who is handling the Laulile case and the prosecutions of the nine other contractors. “For some of them, he’d do some work. Some of them--he took the money and didn’t return.”

Laulile was arrested March 25 by Los Angeles Police Department bunco detectives who had staked out a Westchester home-repair site where he had been hired to tear out an asphalt driveway and replace it with concrete, authorities said. He remained in jail late last week in lieu of posting bail. He has pleaded innocent and a trial has been set for April 27.

Laulile has been charged in a 54-count criminal misdemeanor complaint with victimizing at least 17 people, many of them elderly. According to the complaint, the alleged victims lost hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of dollars apiece.

“Those are the ones we know about,” Chu said last week. “And there’s probably more people out there who haven’t come forward.”

For the most part, Laulile was hired to build fences and patios, do yardwork and repair or refinish sidewalks and driveways. He would get his business by taking out ads in local papers or by walking the streets and introducing himself to residents whose homes or yards looked as if they needed work, Chu said. He would then negotiate an oral contract for work to be done, avoiding anything in writing, and get a down payment. In some cases, he would come back asking for even more up-front money, according to Chu and several victims.

Warren Drayton, a state contractor licensing official, said Laulile does not have the required contractor’s license. Laulile’s public defender, Leavy Oliver, refused comment on the case.

One Westchester woman said in an interview that she gave Laulile more than $6,000 up front for work on her driveway last December. Laulile kept giving excuses for why the work wasn’t getting done and then he vanished after digging up her entire driveway, she said. Her attempts to find him and get him to finish the work or reimburse her were unsuccessful, she said.

“The lady down the street, the same thing happened to her,” said the woman, who said she was too embarrassed to allow her name to be used.

“I really feel stupid. I really did trust him,” she said. “I should know better--I’m a lawyer.”

Another victim, according to authorities, is Tsuneko K. Yokoo, also of Westchester. She said Laulile came by one day, saw her house being remodeled, and asked if she wanted a fence for the front yard. Because she had seen him working on a neighbor’s yard, Yokoo said she trusted Laulile. She gave him a $700 deposit, she said, and then another $400 when he asked--much like her neighbor.

“He was very nice,” said Yokoo, a hair stylist. “But he tricked me.”

Of the 10 contractors recently charged in criminal cases, Laulile provides the most glaring example of what can happen when homeowners give money to contractors not approved and licensed by the state, authorities said. They said that such unlicensed contractors have little accountability, and it is hard for victims to force them to do work or fix shoddy work.

“And finding them is almost impossible,” said Drayton, a deputy for the Contractors State License Board, which regulates contractors.

Licensed contractors must have at least four years of experience and pass a qualifying test. They also must register their addresses with the state licensing board so authorities always know where they are, Drayton said.

Drayton said one-third of the estimated 25,000 complaints a year his agency receives are lodged against unlicensed contractors, even though they make up a much smaller percentage of the contractor work force. “They are a problem,” Drayton said.

At least two of the other contractors charged by the city were from the Westside, or targeted area victims, authorities said.

Freddie James Pickett, 58, of Long Beach is accused of taking a $10,320 down payment from a Westchester homeowner for a $51,600 remodeling project and not returning to do the work. Hahn’s office alleges that Pickett was unlicensed and used someone else’s contractor license number.

Frank (Franco) Basile also is charged with using someone else’s license number. Basile, who gave a Brentwood address, is accused of taking a $3,900 down payment from a Reseda homeowner for a concrete-driveway project, tearing up the driveway and then vanishing.