In the months since The Telegraph published its series of stories on paving businesses owned by members of the Stanley family, reports have continued to reach us – from as near as Massachusetts and as far as Arizona – of people named Stanley demanding excessive sums for questionable asphalt work.

We can’t say we didn’t warn you.

The Telegraph reported extensively both on the extended family and their involvement in the paving business, and the state’s prosecution of Cornelius V. Stanley, of Nashua, and two of his sons for paving scams locally.

Cornelius V. Stanley Sr., 48, of 32 Yarmouth Drive, and two of his sons, Joseph C. Stanley, 20, of Nashua, and Thomas Stanley, 21, of Kingston, were convicted this year on theft charges stemming from a series of paving scams in southern New Hampshire.

A Hillsborough County Superior Court judge sentenced Joseph Stanley to five to 10 years in prison and ordered him to pay more than $30,000 in restitution. Cornelius and Thomas Stanley each received a suspended one-year prison sentence. Each was also fined and ordered to pay $250 restitution for a single scam at a local auto repair shop.

All three Stanleys were barred from paving in the state for the next five years, but the court order carries no authority outside New Hampshire. In September, Cornelius V. Stanley and someone claiming to be one of his sons were chased away from a mobile home park in Bedford Heights, Ohio, where the owner said they tried to collect $14,000 for a paving patch job they had said would cost $275.

The Stanleys weren’t charged, and left empty-handed after a city building official confronted them and found they lacked the required permits to work in the area, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported.

A man related to Cornelius Stanley, Samuel Valentine Stewart, also was accused this summer of a paving scam in Las Vegas, billing $72,468 for what was quoted as a $10,000 job, the Nevada State Contractors Board said.

While some members of the extended Stanley family run apparently reputable businesses, others focus on transient work, soliciting paving jobs door to door, often claiming to have leftover materials and trying to extort hefty fees for cut-rate work. The elderly and small-business owners are favored targets.

One of the most prolific paving scammers, George J. Stanley, 31, of Moosup, Conn., and his cousins, Kevin and George Snow, of Salisbury, Mass., were ordered to pay more than $290,000 to settle criminal charges in several California counties, and had paid at least $160,000 of it in July, the California State Licensing Board reported.

George J. Stanley and the Snow brothers are suspected of paving scams across the continental United States and Hawaii, the CSLB reported.

This past summer, the Worcester Telegram-Gazette, Daily Hampshire Gazette and Newburyport News reported that residents across Massachusetts were raising similar complaints against the Snows’ father, Kevin Snow Sr., and his company, County Line Paving. Snow told the Newburyport paper he had settled all of the complaints in the North Shore area.

– ANDREW WOLFE

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