Concrete Cons Part 2: Wayne McLaughlin And Joe Occhipinti Scam Customers For Over $50K

 

This is a multi-part blog series. Read the previous blogs first: Part 1.

Wayne McLaughlin is a grown man from Peabody who lives with his mother.

He has multiple women who have alleged that he harasses and stalks them, and he doesn’t like paying rent. He’s currently suing his landlord over an intentional slip and fall, and his temper towards women is likely fueled by his love of anabolic steroids.

He’s a “business owner” of a company called “Cape Cod Concrete,” that is not listed on the Secretary of State’s website, but he advertises it all over Facebook yard sale pages.

He advertises another company called “Stamp Concrete Designs and Stone,” which doesn’t exist either.

He also advertises himself as the owner of New Coat Paint & Deck Restoration.

That business is also not listed on the Secretary of State’s website, nor is any business owned by Wayne McLaughlin.

Nevertheless he advertises these businesses everywhere.

This is how customers find Wayne, who is sort of the quarterback for one of the largest gypsy grifting operations in New England. Wayne often hands off jobs to his associates – Joe Occhipinti covers the south shore, while the Rego brothers Eli and Nelson cover Metro-west, the south coast, and Central Mass. However, sometimes they feed off each other. For instance, one customer we spoke with named Vin initially hired Eli Rego, who never did the work and refunded him his $1,000 deposit. That’s when Wayne swooped in to take his business.

I hired Eli 2 plus years ago when we just bought our house to do a stamped concrete patio. Took my $1k deposit, did a little work and then kept pushing me back on dates so I said give me my money back and he said ok. He had someone drop off the $1k cash and that is when I met Wayne. Wayne promised me the world and said he wasn’t Eli and said he would do it so that it was done right. 

Wayne came first day did little work besides move forms and move some dirt. He took my $1k deposit and said he wanted to get it done over the weekend, so he asked for $2,500 cash for cement and labor while I was away at a wedding. So I Trusted him and he just never showed back up and kept pushing me along too. A month after that I filed in the court civil case. I of course won Bec he didn’t show. And now at the end of this month I have another s+p case and if he doesn’t show I can put a bounty on him and I guess his bail is my earnings

Getting judgements against deadbeats like this in court is the easy part because they usually don’t show up, knowing that they collected money without finishing the job. But collecting judgements is the hard part, since these types of people often have no assets, move around a lot, and are unable to be served by the Sheriff’s office. Meanwhile this is Vin’s backyard.

One customer named Sam saw Wayne advertise the Cape Cod Concrete page on a Marblehead Facebook group.

He immediately handed the job off to this man:

Joe Occhipinti.

Joe doesn’t know much about concrete because he was previously a mechanic. His wide open Facebook page contains many images of his work, such as this job:

Jeff Davidson was one of the lucky ones who refused to pay a dime until the job was done. Joe finished it, but it’s falling apart and will need to be replaced soon. Others have left their complaints with Joe on his page, which he apparently does not monitor or care about.

Wayne usually finds work for Joe, which they advertise under their non-existent company name, Stamped Stained Custom Concrete in Taunton.

The only legal business entity Joe Occhipinti has ever owned was Occhipinti Enterprises LLC, which ended in an involuntary dissolution by court order in 2017.

Nevertheless he does business under this name, and agreed to do a job for a customer named Sam at his Hanover home in September.

As usual, Wayne hooked the customer up with Joe, and they agreed on a price of $6,000. The contract stated $1,000 upon signing for deposit, $4,500 after day one of the work, and then $500 upon completion of the job. Joe and another man showed up a day early to dig up the yard, and spent 2-3 hours creating a partial border out of wood. He said they would be back the next day, and they were paid the extra $4,500.

The next day Joe was a no show and didn’t return calls until later, when he said that another job was running late and he would be back on 9/25. That next day he did not show up or return calls until 9/26, and once again claimed he was having car troubles.

The customer got nervous and began researching Joe, discovering that many others had paid for unfinished work, totaling over $50,000.

When Joe showed up to work some more on 9/28 the customer confronted him on film about his past, got him to admit that he paid him $5,500, and got Joe to promise that he would return the money if he did not finish the job by the end of the week. Joe agreed, but said he would file a lawsuit if the customer badmouthed him on social media.

But Joe did not check in with Sam as he agreed to, and he did not show up to finish the job or return his money. When Sam became impatient and threatened to go to the police Joe told him he would “go after your asset,” and own his house if Sam spoke of this thievery publicly.