Matthew Will stands before the court in Wareham at a previous hearing. (Photo by Abram Neal)

PLYMOUTH — A pretrial conference for roofer Matthew Will, 37, of Halifax, owner of Five Star Discount Roofing, scheduled Friday, Dec. 21 for two of five known open larceny-related cases in Plymouth County, has been delayed.

Will last appeared in Wareham District Court Dec. 7 on three other cases. A new alleged victim has come forward first to the Express and later to local authorities with a similar story to those of other alleged victims.

Will’s Plymouth-based attorney, Jack Atwood, delayed the two hearings because he was busy with another case in Quincy, according to court records. The proceedings were canceled at the last minute, on Thursday, Dec. 20, although Will’s cases still appeared on the court’s daily logs as late as Friday morning.

Will is currently facing a total of one count of larceny over $1,200 by false pretense, two counts of larceny over $1,200, 19 counts of larceny over $250 by false pretense, one count of larceny under $250 by false pretense and one count of forgery of a document.

There were 23 area households in three communities claiming they have been victimized to date, who have lost a combined $153,197.34 in monies allegedly given for work not done, with individual losses ranging from $695 to $15,569. Most of these victims are over age 55, and many are elderly, according to police reports. The alleged victim who lost the most money is 78 years old.

These totals do not include the newest alleged victim, who is from Wareham.

Will had done work for him in 2017, before moving to Wareham, he said, with no issue. He appeared to have a good reputation at the time, the semi-retired man stated in an email and a later phone interview with the Express.

Previous work

Based on his previous positive experience with Will, when his daughter and son-in-law had major roof and chimney issues at their East Bridgewater home, he said he chose to help them out financially and reached out to the roofer, calling it a big mistake not to recheck his licenses.

Checking Will’s licenses, though, may not have shown anything as his CSSL-Roofing and HIC licenses are currently active, although he does have several pending arbitrations before the Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation, according to state records.

The Wareham alleged victim said he paid $14,000 for a roof that never vented properly, and waste shingles and trash are still on-site, weeks after work began on the home. He also said he paid $6,047 for chimney work that was never started, and siding was stripped on one section of the house, which is still bare. He estimates that there is $7,000 of outstanding work to be done.

The Wareham man reached out to local authorities, he said in a Wednesday, Dec. 19, email, who alerted Will to another complaint against him.

This prompted a phone conversation between the man and Will, who promised to come Dec. 27 to finish everything except the chimney.

“I don’t hold much hope but if by chance I can get any work completed I would like to try first before I move ahead [to press charges],” he wrote.

Will’s next court appearance, should no new charges be filed, will be on Monday, February 11, 2019, at 9 a.m. in Plymouth District Court for pre-trial hearings. The three Wareham District Court cases have been continued to March 4, 2019, at 9 a.m. also for pre-trial hearings.

Will could not be reached by email or phone for comment as of press time.

BOSTON —Attorneys Jeffrey Angley and Robert Hopkins, representing Industrial Tower and Wireless, LLC., of Marshfield, squared off against Plympton Town Counsel Robin Stein and her co-counsel, Jackie Cowin, representing the Town of Plympton Zoning Board of Appeals before US District Judge Denise J. Casper – possibly best known for presiding over the infamous James “Whitey” Bulger case – in courtroom 11 of the John Joseph Moakley United States Courthouse in the Seaport District of Boston Monday, Nov. 26.

ITW is suing the Plympton ZBA, alleging their right to build a 120-foot, lattice-style cellphone tower at 0 Palmer Road.

According to public records, the roughly four-acre lot was recently sold by Lawrence Marble, Jr. and Joy Marble, both of Halifax, trustees of ELBRAM Realty Trust, to Michael Umano, trustee of ITW Realty Trust, 40 Lone St., Marshfield, for $235,000. The sale was recorded with the Plymouth County Registry of Deeds Nov. 9.

The court proceedings were brief.

Casper held a commanding presence over the courtroom. Angley appeared at ease before the court and spoke more than the other three attorneys present. Stein was not as vocal as Angley. Neither of the co-counsels addressed the court directly.

The event, a scheduling conference, informed the court of the parties’ proposed schedule for discovery, disclosure and depositions. Casper worked amicably with the lawyers to finalize the schedule they had jointly submitted.

The lawsuit, filed in early September, will likely continue on through at least next summer, according to court documents.

Casper asked if there were any settlement prospects.

Angley replied that there were not. He said that most of these types of cases were disposed of by a judge with a summary judgement – an order ruling that no factual issues remain, and a complaint can be decided upon the facts by a judge without a trial.

ITW has a history of suing local government boards in federal court who have opposed them, according to court records. They have some history in Plympton, as well, as the ZBA decision denying them a permit to build their cellphone tower took several months to arrive at and they have had their eye on Plympton for “years,” according to testimony at the hearing in Plympton.

The communications company first came before the ZBA seeking zoning relief under the federal Telecommunications Act of 1996, which, according to Stein, was created to help build telecommunications infrastructure because most cell towers do not conform to local zoning bylaws in cities and towns across the nation.

According to Stein, the TCA of 1996 requires local zoning ordinances to be waived for a cellphone tower should a ZBA find that there is both a significant gap in cellphone coverage and that there are no alternate sites to locate it.

Stein warned the board that this type of case has been well litigated in the federal courts, in this circuit and others. However, there are examples where localities have prevailed against telecommunications companies in federal court on certain grounds, including aesthetics, such as the T-Mobile Northeast v. Town of Islip ruling of 2012 in the Eastern District of New York.

ITW made claims that 7,000 to 8,000 vehicles a day pass through an alleged 2.5 by 1.5-mile coverage gap. This was never independently verified, according to both ITW and town officials. ITW claims that it had been looking for “years” for a location to locate a cellphone tower and this one site was the only one of 36 they had exhaustively identified as suitable.

On Aug. 31, the ZBA voted down ITW’s application, 2-1, to build a tower on the business-zoned lot, surrounded by residential/agricultural zoned land, after multiple contentious hearings on the matter were held over the course of last summer.

Board members Dave Alberti and Harry Weikel voted against the tower, despite warnings by Stein that they were opening Plympton up to a federal lawsuit.

Board Chairman Ken Thompson voted for the project, with little visible enthusiasm, noting after that because the vote had to be unanimous, and he voted last, his vote didn’t matter.

During final deliberations, Weikel noted what he counted as 17 “significant” variances, not just the four in the application, that he believed the applicant required for the construction of a cell-tower. He listed other possible locations he found suitable, including town-owned parcels of land.

The lawsuit takes special note of Weikel’s objections, stating in a document filed Nov. 16 that, “[a]fter the close of the hearing and during the Board’s deliberations, one Board member then recounted a series of properties that ITW allegedly should have considered but as to which ITW was given no advance notice nor opportunity to respond. The exercise establishes the hostility of the Board to ITW’s application and the utter bad faith tactics of the Board.”

Weikel, at a hearing in August, stated as previously reported by the Express, “I’m here to protect the people … that’s the only reason I accepted this appointment.”