Judge agrees contractor at fault

But there's no decision yet on how much of the attorney fees he'll pay.

By CHUIN-WEI YAP, Times Staff Writer
Published October 28, 2007

ADVERTISEMENT [Brendan Fitterer | Times] Peter and Joyce Porebski were left without the screens they contracted for on their New Port Richey home after a lengthy and expensive legal dispute with their window contractor.

NEW PORT RICHEY - Peter Porebski's windows have no screens.

Every time he opens the double-hung panes in his 3,400-square-foot Hidden Lakes house, Porebski is reminded of how it got this way.

He remembers the $9,915 installation contract he signed with Pasco Window & Door Inc. The 23 screens that never came. His accusations of shoddy work. The lien, the foreclosure threat and the lawsuit that the company slapped on him and his wife after he paid them only $9,000. The four years of legal fights and $11,000 in attorney fees.

Now, a judge says Pasco Window & Door's lien against Porebski was fraudulent.

But state attorneys won't pursue the fraud charges that Porebski wants. They say the case is too late and unwinnable.

"It's not right," Porebski said. "The law says this is a felony. If this is not a crime, why did the legislators write it into the law?"

* * *

Pasco Window & Door is a 27-year-old company based in New Port Richey, headed by 72-year-old Stanley C. Ubele.

His son, John J. Ubele, was the company secretary and treasurer between 1998 and 2006, as well as a white separatist candidate for the Pasco Mosquito Control Board and now the sole challenger for state Rep. John Legg's seat.

John Ubele notarized the lien that set off the four-year wrangle with Porebski. Neither Ubele replied to calls from the St. Petersburg Times.

In August 2003, three months after Porebski signed his contract with Ubele's firm, he paid Pasco Window & Door $9,000. He wouldn't pay the outstanding $915, he said, because the screens weren't delivered and he wasn't happy with the work.

On Nov. 26, 2003, the lien appeared. About a month later, a legal notice followed, demanding the balance of $915.36 plus another $100 for "service/labor."

When Porebski contested the lien, the company filed suit to foreclose on the house.

The trial that followed was interrupted in January 2005, when Judge W. Lowell Bray Jr. had to recuse himself. Bray's daughter, in a separate case, appeared likely to file suit against Pasco Window & Door for work performance issues.

Stanley Ubele later said his company fixed Beverly Bray's complaints. She could not be reached for comment.

On Aug. 23, 2007, Porebski won in court.

"There is competent, substantial evidence that the lien was fraudulently filed," Judge Paul Firmani said, in a transcript of the ruling. "Here we're dealing with a contractor who files a claim of lien knowing the screens which were part of the package had not been delivered. ... I'm specifically finding that this contractor knowingly, willfully entered a claim of lien for material that he knew had not been furnished."

Firmani hasn't made a decision yet on how much of Porebski's $11,000 attorney fees Pasco Window & Door should pay.

* * *

Meanwhile, Stanley Ubele is reclaiming lost ground.

In a letter he wrote Sept. 17, 2007, to the Pasco Sheriff's Office, during investigations initiated by Porebski, Ubele said the screens were in fact delivered. Ubele had recently discovered a work order dated July 2003 - one month before Porebski paid the company $9,000 - where it was written that the screens were installed but Porebski ordered them removed.

Pobreski says that isn't true.

Ubele's latest discovery contradicts the trial findings and letters he's written before.

Here's what he wrote Oct. 26, 2005, to the Better Business Bureau, after Porebski complained to the agency: "The only thing left to do was to deliver their screens, which we did not do because the Porebskis refused to pay us."

In letters to the Sheriff's Office, Ubele also says he can't remember clearly what happened, that he wasn't involved in day-to-day operations, and the people involved no longer work at Pasco Window & Door.

But he does remember that "the reason we couldn't find the screens was that they were put in according to the job work order. ... Another point I want to make is that nowhere in any of Mr. Porebski's letters does he say specifically that he didn't get his screens."

What Porebski repeatedly said was this: "Your company has not delivered all the goods nor satisfactorily completed the installation."

Porebski now wants criminal charges.

But he's not getting them - partly because of a technicality.

State attorneys say they can't file charges on this kind of felony allegation if it was committed more than three years ago. They have a one-year extension beyond this limit, but only if the "discovery of the offense by the aggrieved party" comes after those three years. Porebski first made those allegations nearly four years ago, but not to the state attorney's office.

Technicalities aside, state attorneys also think the matter should remain a civil dispute. They lean toward believing Ubele's later claims to the Sheriff's Office. They're not too pleased that Porebski had threatened to go to the Times if the state doesn't file charges.

"I couldn't convict this guy in a hundred years," said Bruce Bartlett, chief assistant state attorney. "The state's time wouldn't be well served by going after Ubele or the company. If I went after this 71-year-old guy who's been in business 30 years in Pasco County, you guys would be going after me."

* * *

In Porebski's house, some of the windows still don't open properly. Porebski can't lift his glass sliding door from its rails.

Porebski talks about the "broken windows" theory, which says a society that neglects its broken windows is a society on the way down.

"He hadn't delivered the screens and he knew it," Porebski said. "Why is this not 'broken windows'?"

His wife, Joyce Porebski, doesn't talk theory.

"I just want my screens," she said.

Staff researcher Carolyn Edds contributed to this story. Chuin-Wei Yap can be reached at (813)909-4613 or cyap@sptimes.com.

[Last modified October 27, 2007, 20:44:38]