Subcontractors say builder?s stopped payments
Some subcontractors say they?re being pushed to the brink of financial ruin because Mel-Re, a longtime builder and developer in Fort Myers, stopped paying them for their work.
Meanwhile, Mel-Re owner Ed Adkins? nephew Jeffery was in the Lee County Jail on Friday charged with aggravated assault after allegedly brandishing a gun at a subcontractor who was prying the windows and doors from a Mel-Re project because he hadn?t been paid.
Ed Adkins did not return calls.
But some subcontractors on the 200-unit Bella Casa condominium project under way on Plantation Road in Fort Myers say he hasn?t paid them and they?re in dire straits.
?I?m into them for a couple hundred thousand,? said Clifton Lockhart, owner of Clifton B. Lockhart LLC Inc., who had been doing metal framing, drywall, stucco and painting on Bella Casa. ?Myself and my family have spent every dime we have trying to get this building done.?
This week Lockhart and other Bella Casa subcontractors received a letter from Bank of Florida saying it will no longer be funding the project.
Bank officials could not be reached for comment.
Bank of Florida "made a final determination to cease making further advances, pursuant to its loans to Bella Casa LLC," the letter says. "Please govern yourself accordingly."
Mel-Re's conflict with a subcontractor on another project this week led to Jeffery Adkins' arrest.
At a commercial building under construction on Techster Boulevard in Fort Myers, a subcontractor was allegedly threatened Thursday by Jeffery, a Mel-Re superintendent.
"I went over there to take back some of the windows and doors that they had not paid for," said Lou Luongo, owner of Loumac Distributors. "They'd pretty much defaulted on their contract."
But as he was doing that, Jeffrey Adkins "went to his vehicle, got a gun and pretty much made it clear to me he had a gun and he was going to stop me with it," Luongo said....................
http://www.news-press.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071027/RE/710270456/1014/BUSINESS