John Mulinski is a contractor who's feeling the heat from investigators up and down the West Coast.
We first told you about Mulinski and his company 'Home Curb Appeal' two weeks ago. The Covington man's been hit four times for working while unregistered in Washington, once in Oregon and his contractor's license is currently under suspension in California. This is a man well-known to state inspectors like Matt Jackson, a compliance inspector for the Department of Labor and Industries.
"Mr. Mulinski's m.o. is to do bad business. He's a bad contractor," he said.
We've also learned that last year Mulinski was sued by the owners of a Federal Way home for failing to complete work, performing defective work, and double-charging for work performed. Mulinski never showed up in court to defend himself and he was slapped with a $457,640.08 default judgment.
"There's kind of an m.o. of him getting jobs, starting them, and not completing them, taking money for jobs, and not showing up to do the work for the jobs," Jackson said.
The state also says Mulinski did not pay some of his workers. He owes four people more than $25,000 in wages and interest. Mulinski hasn't paid the fines in those cases either.
State senator Jeanne Kohl-Welles says unregistered contractors like Mulinski hurt businesses that play by the rules.
"It's not fair at all and we think the system should be fair," she said.
A recent study for the state says the unlicensed, unregistered construction business cost the state $109 million a year in lost revenues. Enter Senate Bill 6575, it'll make a third unregistered contracting violation a felony, punishable by 5 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
"I don't think people want that to happen, so we think it will be an incentive," Kohl-Welles said.
To stop this, the day after our first story on Mulinski aired, L&I inspector Matt Jackson got a call at the Tukwila office.
"They saw your report the previous night, alerted me that Mr. Mulinski was here trying to renew his contractor's registration," he said.
Remember, Mulinski is not registered and hasn't paid his fines, but there he was and Matt says another unregistered contractor was filling out Mulinski's paperwork.
Jesse Jones: "Why didn't John do it himself?"
Matt Jackson: "Because maybe he knows he can't get registered as a contractor."
Jesse Jones: "You think?"
Matt Jackson: "I don't think he was suprised when we told him he couldn't register."
Mulinski did not return multiple calls for comment.
Senate Bill 6575 has passed the Senate. It's now in the House.
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