NASHUA – CVS Paving owner Cornelius V. “Neil” Stanley has been indicted on paving scam charges, along with two of his sons, one of whom has been jailed since last summer.

A Hillsborough County grand jury has brought felony charges against Stanley, 47, of 32 Yarmouth Drive, and his son Thomas A. Stanley, 20, of Kingston. Each faces a single Class B felony theft charge in connection with a paving scam at a local auto repair shop last summer.

Joseph C. Stanley, 19, faces the brunt of the new charges, however, with 10 new felony theft charges stemming from alleged paving scams around Nashua last summer. He also faces nine misdemeanor charges of “unfair or deceptive business practices” stemming from five of the alleged scams.

Joseph Stanley, whose last address was 2 Devonshire Road, Londonderry, has been jailed since July on previous paving scam charges in Nashua. He and his brother Thomas Stanley also face pending charges in Connecticut, where police say they were using their father’s trucks to run paving scams in several towns, going door to door with offers of “left over” asphalt.

Joseph Stanley’s arraignment on the new charges is scheduled for Feb. 5 in Hillsborough County Superior Court. His father and brother have not been arrested, and are scheduled to appear for arraignment Feb. 19.

Assistant Attorney General Tracy Culberson said the charges wrap up an investigation by Nashua Police and the Consumer Protection Bureau stemming from the paving scam allegations against Joseph Stanley last summer. Publicity surrounding Stanley’s arrest prompted additional victims to come forward, he said.

“I think it wraps up this chapter,” Culberson said, though he added that he would continue to review all paving scam complaints that the Consumer Protection Bureau receives.

Joseph Stanley is accused of offering to repair driveways on Cox, Fairmont, Hollis and Wilder Streets, Bulova and Learned Drive, and Lund Road, the indictments state. He used various business names, including Dunn Right and Verizon Paving.

All three Stanleys are charged as accomplices for a job at Bell Auto, 93 E. Hollis St., the charges state.

In each case, the indictment states that Stanley proposed to charge a few hundred dollars to patch up faults in the asphalt, claiming he had material left over from another job. Stanley then spread asphalt over a much larger area, and demanded up to thousands of dollars in payment, the indictments charge.

Joseph Stanley’s lawyer, Charles Bookman, of Melrose, Mass., could not be reached for comment Thursday. Cornelius and Thomas Stanley also could not be reached. Bookman has previously disputed the charges, claiming Stanley received honest pay for honest work.

“The inference was that Mr. Stanley somehow intimidated elderly people into giving him money for shoddy work,” Bookman said during a hearing on the original charges last summer. “There’s this inference that this gentleman was taking advantage of elderly persons in a way that he has not. … These are not thefts.”

Bookman noted Joseph Stanley’s extensive roots in the region, saying, “His entire family is from the Derry, Hudson and Nashua area.”

A checkered past

As Bookman mentioned, the Stanleys are part of a large, extended family, many of whom have made their living in asphalt for generations. Some Stanley family paving crews migrate south and west during the winter, when paving jobs dry up in New England.

Some of the Stanley relatives run reputable paving companies in New Hampshire. Others, including CVS Paving, have been subject of complaints to the state’s Consumer Protection Bureau.

Cornelius Stanley has been arrested once before on similar charges in Pinellas County, Florida, in 2001, The Telegraph found, and he and an older son, Cornelius V. Stanley Jr., 26, also set up a paving business in Virginia last summer, public records show.

Cornelius Stanley was charged with fraud and unlicensed contracting in Florida, public records show. The offense took place March 7, 1997, but Stanley wasn’t arrested until Nov. 30, 2001, Florida records show. He was arraigned Dec. 28, 2001, and then pleaded guilty Jan. 10, 2002, paying a $225 fine and $2,500 in restitution.

Cornelius Stanley and his son Cornelius Jr. set up shop as Red Line Paving in Leesburg and Herndon, Va., last winter, public records show.

“They turned this area upside down,” said the owner of a paving company in that region, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The Red Line paving crew used mobile phones, stayed in motels, and made door-to-door sales with claims of leftover asphalt, insisting on cash on completion, the owner said. The Stanleys had never worked that region before, the owner said, but the family is notorious in the industry.

“They’re known throughout the area,” he said. “The guys all call them the Boston Stanleys.”

Public records show that Cornelius V. Stanley, of 32 Yarmouth Drive, Nashua, used an address of 2234 Astoria Circle Apt. 207, Herndon, Va., in 2009, and also 402 Nikki Terrace SE, in Leesburg, Va.

The Telegraph found listings for Red Line Paving at both of those addresses, and a company Web site, www.redline paving.com, hosted by yellow pages.com. A listing for Red Line Paving in Herndon named the company’s owner as Cornelius Stanley.

Cornelius V. Stanley Jr. was cited in Virginia on Feb. 16, 2009, for driving an uninspected vehicle and driving without a license or registration, public records show. He previously had been ticketed on Sept. 11, 2008, for failing to obey a traffic sign.

In both cases, he simply paid the fine, with no need to appear in court, records show.

‘Granny grabbing’

Two former employees, one from Nashua and another from Manchester, have told The Telegraph that they worked for CVS Paving in Arizona and Texas in 2007 and 2008. Both men spoke on condition of anonymity.

In Arizona and Texas, the Stanleys worked closely with other companies run by relatives from New Hampshire and elsewhere around the country, the workers said. The families live out of large campers, while their workers shared motel rooms, and they did business mainly by cell phone.

“They will go and buy 14 tons of asphalt, not even having a buyer, and they will go and force themselves to sell it,” the former employee from Manchester said. “They call it granny grabbing. This is where they take advantage of the elderly. … They will go hunt for the elderly to make their money.”

“They say they’ll give it to you for 50 cents a square foot, then when they get the tape measure out it (the price) always seems to double and triple,” the Manchester worker said. “We laid over grass. They didn’t even cut it out, they laid right over it … grass, concrete. It’s called, ‘Blow and go.’?”

Trouble in Connecticut

Joseph C. Stanley, formerly of 32 Yarmouth Drive and 2 Devonshire Lane, Londonderry, has been jailed since July 23, facing paving scam charges in Nashua and two Connecticut towns.

Joseph Stanley was arrested June 30 in Nashua, on charges that he swindled two elderly homeowners out of $6,900, giving his name as “Tony Bennett,” and claiming to represent “Dunn Right Paving.” Bennett is his mother’s maiden name, according to court records.

In both cases, Nashua police said, Stanley did shoddy work, laying a thin coat of asphalt, which he stamped down with boots and boards, rather than using proper equipment.

On July 9, just days after he was released on bail in Nashua, Joseph and his brother Thomas were arrested in Monroe, Conn., where police also impounded a 2000 Peterbilt dump truck and a Ford pick-up truck, both registered to Cornelius V. Stanley, in Nashua, Monroe Police Lt. Brian McCauley said.

Connecticut police said that the Stanley pavers were working without the requisite contractor’s license, and without following state consumer- protection regulations. Their case remains pending in Bridgeport Superior Court.

Police in Manchester, Conn., also have issued warrants for Joseph Stanley and two laborers, stemming from four alleged paving scams in that community. Manchester (Conn.) police were investigating Thomas Stanley as well, a detective there said.

Though Stanley was freed on bail after his first arrests in Nashua, a judge later increased his bail to $75,000 on July 23, and he’s remained behind bars ever since. The theft charges carry a maximum of 10 to 30 years in prison under the state’s elderly exploitation laws. His case had been scheduled for trial in December, but was postponed at the request of his lawyer, who wrote that both sides were negotiating a plea bargain on the charges. The trial is now scheduled to begin March 8, but the new charges may prompt another postponement.

A variety of complaints

The Consumer Protection Bureau of the New Hampshire Attorney General’s office had received similar complaints against CVS paving in 2004 and 2008.

In 2004, a homeowner complained that Neil Stanley had charged him $3,500 after laying a topcoat over his existing driveway, despite having contracted to dig out old asphalt, and lay down and compact and grade a base layer of gravel.

CVS ignored the attorney general’s invitation to mediate the complaint, and the office closed its file the next year, advising the homeowner to consider small claims court.

In September, after Joseph Stanley’s arrest, another complaint surfaced. The homeowner said that a Joseph and Thomas Stanley, of 32 Yarmouth Drive, Nashua, doing business as Verizon Paving, had paved their driveway during the summer of 2008 for $2,420, having started the job without the homeowner’s consent. The Stanleys offered a three-year warranty, but when the homeowner called to complain that the driveway was crumbling to pieces, Cornelius Stanley denied owning a paving company, they wrote.

The Consumer Protection Bureau wrote CVS Paving in September, inviting him to respond to the complaint.

The attorney general’s office had also received a complaint in 2008 regarding Verizon Paving and Premiere One Paving but forwarded that complaint to Joseph Stanley of Northwood, its records show.

In May 2008, an 84-year-old Methuen, Mass., man complained that Joseph Stanley, of 32 Yarmouth Drive, Nashua, had shown up at his house, offered to pave his driveway and started to work “before I could think,” let alone agree. The two young men stamped down the hot top with their boots, demanded $3,100 and cashed the check immediately, the complaint states. The man had called his daughter, who tried to get the bank to stop the check, but it was too late.

The attorney general’s office sent copies of that complaint to Joseph Stanley, of 32 Yarmouth Drive, Nashua, and to a Joseph Stanley in Northwood, but got no response, its records indicate.

People who have sued CVS Paving also get mixed results. A former employee managed to collect $4,000 in back wages last year in Hillsborough County Superior Court, but Lei Hur, of 17 Scenic View Drive, Pelham, has been unable to collect a $48,282.90 judgment against the company.

Hillsborough County sheriffs were ordered to serve notice of the judgment on CVS and its owner in 2008, but nothing further happened in the case, despite Cornelius V. Stanley’s arrest by sheriffs on two occasions in 2009, court records show.

Andrew Wolfe can be reached at 594-6410 or awolfe@nashuatelegraph.com.