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MSNBCMississippi fines Florida firm for ‘negligence,’ weighs criminal probe Of the dozens of building contractors punished by the state of Mississippi for preying on victims of Hurricane Katrina, one stands out from the crowd of mostly small-time, fly-by-night operators: Call Henry, a Florida-based firm with hundreds of employees that each year earns tens of millions of dollars from contracts with the Department of Defense, NASA and the Environmental Protection Agency.
The company boasts on its Web site about its rosy prospects for new federal business. But at the same time, it has closed up shop in the hurricane zone and is ignoring customers there who say that their homes are falling apart after Call Henry repaired or rebuilt them. The state Attorney General's Office is considering launching a criminal investigation against the firm. And the company is appealing a $10,000 fine that the Mississippi State Board of Contractors levied after finding that Call Henry exhibited “gross negligence or misconduct” in its contracting business.
“They shafted people right and left,” said a sobbing Mary Bobbitt of Waveland, Miss., who hired Call Henry to fix her three-bedroom, one-bath ranch-style home after it was inundated by Katrina’s deadly flood tide. “They came in from Florida thinking they could make a whole bunch of money and then they left. They just left us.”
Complaints against Call Henry are a small fraction of the Katrina-related accusations against contractors that have been investigated by Mississippi building officials and the state Attorney General’s Office. The attorney general has 377 open investigations of contractor fraud and has made 58 arrests. “Mississippi experienced more of this type of fraud in the wake of Katrina than ever before,” said spokeswoman Jan Schaefer.
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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23692062/
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