Why Should Delaware Care?
The Delaware Department of Justice listed home improvement fraud as one its top 10 scams of 2024. Arrests have been on the rise, yet convicting these cases can be a challenge for prosecutors, even after someone has lost tens of thousands of dollars.
Donna Brustman lost everything three years ago when her longtime family home in Newark burned to the ground.
“I had 40 years worth of stuff in that house,” the 75-year-old said. “Everything had to be thrown away – everything.”
She received an insurance payment of $262,225, and was ready to find a contractor to rebuild the home. Her insurance company hired a third-party home appraiser, which recommended she sign with Cornerstone Restoration, a Maryland-based contractor.
So that’s what Brustman did.
While the contractors went to work on her home, Brustman spent nine months in a nearby hotel with her 40-year old son, his wife and their three children, no older than 13. But four months after signing, she said little progress had been made on the home.
Brustman and her family pressed the contractors on why the home had not progressed. Each time they were met with different reasons as to why they hadn’t finished the home and were asked for more money.
After $298,000 in payments, the contractors never finished her home and didn’t respond to a request for a refund. Close to three years after it first burned down, Brustman is back in her home, after hiring another contractor.
Yet she wonders at what cost.
She burned through her insurance payout during the first set of renovations and will likely have to sell a rental property she owns to pay her sister back who helped fund the final renovations. Brustman also said she no longer has her “nest egg” she planned to use to enjoy her retirement.
“I’m gonna be broke,” she said.
Pam Space, Brustman’s niece, said she pleaded with the Delaware State Police to charge the contractors, and that they initially told her it was a civil matter. But in August 2024, Delaware State Police arrested the contractors on home improvement fraud charges.
In November, those charges were later dropped “nolle prosequi” – meaning they were no longer being prosecuted but could be tried at a later time. The case was one of 75 building fraud cases that the Delaware Department of Justice has dropped in such a manner since 2019.
Space said this was because the Delaware DOJ told her and her lawyer it wouldn’t prosecute due to the challenges of proving intent.
Owen Lefkon, director of the department’s Fraud and Consumer Protection Division, told Spotlight Delaware that proving home contractor fraud cases is “really difficult” in criminal court.
When reached for comment about why the state did not pursue a prosecution, Mat Marshall, a spokesperson for the DOJ, said “the criminal case was not viable.” He said work already completed on the home would not demonstrate the contractors’ falling through as an “effort to commit theft.”
“It’s absolutely fair to be upset and/or to pursue civil litigation given the dollar amounts involved, but there is daylight between doing a bad job and committing a crime,” Marshall said in an email statement.
It’s absolutely fair to be upset and/or to pursue civil litigation given the dollar amounts involved, but there is daylight between doing a bad job and committing a crime.
mat marshall, department of justice spokesman
Year over year since 2019, home improvement fraud cases have steadily increased, according to arrest statistics shared by the Delaware DOJ. In 2024, there were 73 arrests for home improvement fraud, the highest in the five-year period.
Those same statistics also show a quarter of cases were dismissed “nolle prosequi” in those five years. It comes at a time when the Delaware DOJ ranked home improvement fraud as one of its top 10 scams of 2024.
In response to challenges with conviction, the Delaware DOJ supported a new bill introduced last week to establish a “Home Improvement Dispute Resolution process.” If passed, the law would put more pressure on contractors to settle disputes outside of court.
Yet earlier this month, those same contractors were arrested again by New Castle County police on new home improvement fraud charges, after they allegedly accepted a $73,000 check to rebuild another burned down home, but did “no work” on the home.
When asked about the new arrest, Marshall said the DOJ is still reviewing the facts of the case.
On the same day as the contractors’ second arrest, Delaware State Police announced another Maryland-based contractor was arrested for allegedly signing contracts with six customers to do residential renovations.
According to the release announcing his arrest, the contracts totaled more than $1 million, but none of the projects were completed. One day later, they’d announce another arrest for a Georgetown contractor who allegedly received more than $24,000 to do work he never completed.
Space said when she initially met with the representatives from the DOJ, including Attorney General Kathy Jennings, she was told they’d need to see a pattern from Cornerstone Restoration. Now, that pattern is there for the DOJ to see, she said.
“There should be no reason that this isn’t prosecuted,” she said.
What can the DOJ do about it?
Lefkon said proving intent on home improvement fraud cases is “really difficult.”
Oftentimes, he said home improvement contracts are “informal agreements,” which may lack specific obligations for a contractor or lead to “a mismatch of expectations.”
A major part of prosecuting a contractor comes down to proving intent to which Lefkon said that falling through is not always a crime if a contractor intends to complete the project.
“It’s not a crime to be bad at business, and we have an ethical obligation to prosecute people for crimes, and we need to make that determination,” Lefkon said.
One of the most serious charges brought against the Brustmans’ contractor last year for home improvement fraud said someone can be charged for “failing to substantially complete the home improvement” with intent.
The DOJ’s bill, House Bill 89, sponsored by Rep. Eric Morrison (D-Glasgow), would strengthen options for people to settle disputes with contractors outside of court. To see a resolution, consumers would have to send the contractor a written notice trying to resolve the dispute.
Next, a consumer would have to send the DOJ a letter with their attempt to reach the contractor and their response, if the contractor responds at all.
Should the contractor not reply within 20 days, the law would consider it a violation of the Consumer Fraud Act, which would carry financial penalties for contractors. Contractors could also lose their licenses.
Additionally, someone who brings a private lawsuit against a contractor and wins, could get three times the amount of compensatory damages, if they went through the dispute process and a contractor denies a settlement.
According to Marshall, the bill is aimed at cases that don’t quite reach the level of criminal prosecution but are also difficult to win a civil award.
“So it does help with the cases that fall in the doughnut hole where consumers aren’t satisfied and we can’t secure the very strongest penalties available under law,” Marshall said.
Patterns of non-communication
According to the criminal complaint brought against Thomas and DiNetta Kerfoot, owners of Cornerstone Restoration, they signed a contract with Brustman on Dec. 7, 2022, and received an initial payment of $87,408.
For months afterward, Brustman would drive by the home and see a dumpster out front of the house used for the cleanup. But it appeared it was not being emptied and looked to be continuously full, according to the complaint.
Brustman called DiNetta Kerfoot to get an explanation, but her calls were not returned, according to the complaint.
In March 2023, Brustman’s insurance company stopped paying for the hotel where she was staying while awaiting her home’s rebuild. She was forced to evict tenants from her rental home in order to have somewhere to stay, the complaint said.
A month later, Space and Brustman met with the Kerfoots, and Space intended to fire them for the “lack of work accomplished” since signing the contract, according to the complaint. Yet they were told the reason they had not been able to finish the work was because they were dealing with the murder of their son and had trial obligations.
Thomas Kerfoot said he “needed this job” and would “make things right,” the complaint said. Space said she felt bad for the Kerfoots and allowed them to continue on the job with Brustman’s permission.
By the end of June 2023, work still had not started, according to the complaint, but the Kerfoots received a second payment of $87,000. After that, the complaint said Space would not receive responses from the Kerfoots when she asked about progress.
Two months later in August, the Kerfoots met once again with Brustman and other family members, according to the complaint. At that time, DiNetta asked for another $35,000 and “promised” the house would be finished a month later.
When they all met and the completion date was promised, DiNetta told the family that she’d be taking over the project since Thomas had been struggling with the death of his son, the complaint said.
Space and Brustman requested an itemized list of purchases after the fact that would add up to $30,000, but the contractors refused to provide it, the complaint said. Instead, they responded claiming they would not finish the job if Space was involved, the complaint said.
Space agreed to bow out after a separate verbal argument with the Kerfoots. But in February 2024, she got involved again after she saw no progress on the home and that Brustman had paid the Kerfoots another $120,000.
A month later, Brustman and Space sent a contract termination to the Kerfoots, requesting a full refund of all unused funds. The complaint said neither heard back and that their company was no longer in business.
By April 2024, close to a year and a half after Brustman signed with the Kerfoots, the complaint said the only work done outside of the home had been the roof, siding wrap, windows and doors. Inside of the home, only “minor contracting” work like wiring, plumbing and framing was completed, the complaint said.
According to the complaint, what appears to be an inspector for New Castle County told an officer the home had the most code violations of any home in county history because of “work done by Cornerstone.”
Delaware State Police would arrest the Kerfoots in August 2024. DOJ prosecutors would drop those charges in November. But earlier this month, the Kerfoots were charged again in relation to a different home in Greenville.
Monica Ayres, a director at the prominent law firm Richards, Layton & Finger, said she lost her home in a June 2023 house fire. A criminal complaint against the contractors said after Ayres signed the contract to rebuild in October 2023, she paid $73,000 upfront, which represented a third of the cost.
But by March 2024, the contractors “stopped responding completely” to Ayres and that the power was not turned back on, nor were any permits pulled for the project, the complaint said. The court documents also said DiNetta told police Cornerstone Restoration filed for bankruptcy in early 2024.
Yet according to the criminal complaint, the day after filing for bankruptcy, Thomas sent a claim to Ayres’ insurance requesting more funds. Thomas told Ayres in late February that “they were still moving forward” with the project, the complaint said.
As of March 4, 2025, the complaint said Ayres had not been refunded and that “no work” had been done on the house by the contractors.
The contractors are scheduled for a preliminary hearing Tuesday morning in Wilmington, but it was rescheduled to May 1. A lawyer for the Kerfoots did not respond to a request for comment.