A North Granby man charged with making unlicensed home improvements after a state Department of Consumer Protection investigation has applied to a rehabilitation program and is due in court in October.
Dante Boffi, 43, of North Granby, turned himself in to Glastonbury police on May 28 and has filed an application for the accelerated rehabilitation program. If in applicant is accepted and successfully completes the program, the court dismisses the charges.
The files in this case have been sealed because of the application to the program.
Officials from the attorney general's office previously said a complaint was filed in September and they received a referral from the state Department of Consumer Protection after they investigated Boffi.
"(A)fter review, we authorized an arrest warrant for Mr. Boffi on one count of failure to register as a home improvement contractor. The arrest warrant stemmed from alleged conduct involving a homeowner in Glastonbury," Jaclyn Falkowski, director of communications for the office of the attorney general, said in an e-mail.
No additional information was available about this arrest, but the NBC Connecticut Troubleshooters spoke with Boffi in August after some homeowners in the state complained about work Boffi was the general contractor for.
The Troubleshooters previous investigation revealed that Boffi collected tens of thousands of dollars in advance for home improvement work that he did not perform and he acknowledges that he was using money from one job to pay for other jobs.
He added that he is out of the general contracting business for good and is committed to paying back what he calls “a handful” of homeowners.
Boffi declined to an on-camera interview when NBC Connecticut reached out to him last August year, but he did speak to us and said problems started mounting about two years earlier when he took a financial hit on an unrelated job.
“There was one job where I was screwed out of $200,000,” he said.
Boffi established his design architecture firm in 2001. In the past few years, he started doing general contracting work as well.
Pantheon Development, LLC, which listed Dante J Boffi as the owner, was licensed for “New Home Construction” from October 2011 through September 2013 until the license lapsed, but Pantheon never held a license for the remodeling and renovation work Boffi has been doing the past few years.
“Admittedly, when I started doing this, I didn't do the research I should have: what licenses covered what insurances, I was green at it,” he said last summer.
When previously asked about specifics relating to the three homeowners who complained about him, Boffi said the first check on one couple’s job bounced.
“I have borrowed from family. I have borrowed from friends and I've worked round the clock at my design work to piece them back,” he said last year.
