Sentencing handed
down in Trager case

By Lauren Fritsky
Times Staff Writer

A Common Pleas Court judge last week decided that scam roofer Gary Trager won’t do jail time for stealing from customers, but instead will serve his sentence under his own roof.
The ruling didn’t reflect the past distress of Trager’s victims, many of whom no longer could enjoy their homes after the Northeast roofer pocketed their money and left their roofs unfinished, broken or leaking while he sat in his Dewees Street residence avoiding their calls.
On Sept. 25, Judge Pamela Dembe sentenced Trager to 11-1/2 to 23 months of house arrest, five years’ probation and ordered him to pay $4,000 in restitution to the 14 people he scammed over a five-year period.
Trager, 52, and his twin brother Mark ran Santini Contractors in the Northeast’s Pennypack section. A police investigation of complaints from victims led to the brothers’ Feb. 6 arrest on charges of deceptive business practices and multiple counts of theft.
During a preliminary hearing two months later, when victims told stories of unfinished or shoddy work and futile attempts to recover payments, the Tragers were ordered to stand trial, but Mark died of a heart attack on July 2. Gary Trager pleaded guilty to the charges against him in August.
Detectives had decided to take a close look at Santini Contractors after an 86-year-old woman reported that the Tragers had taken her deposit money but never fixed her roof. A deeper look by investigators revealed a string of similar complaints, many from elderly people, about shoddy work and unreturned money that amounted to a total of $8,000.
About half of that sum has been returned, according to the Tragers’ lawyer, Timothy Tarpey.
Throughout the case, the brothers denied any malicious intent, citing their own health problems and setbacks from inclement weather as reasons for the job delays. Gary Trager, accompanied in court last week by several relatives, maintained his innocence at the sentencing.
"I never at any time intentionally tried to mislead anyone about anything," he said.
None of the victims appeared in court, but their voices were heard by way of several impact statements read by Assistant District Attorney Dawn Holtz.
"These men stole. That’s the only way to put," Estelle Bell wrote in her letter.
Connie Flores said her brush with the brothers caused her to be "skeptical of people, even now."
Holtz added that the brothers had maintained a second occupation as truck washers at UPS in Willow Grove, which led to them "trying to take more money and not being able to do both jobs." She asked that Trager spend one month in prison for each victim, or a term of 14 to 28 months.
Tarpey, the defense attorney, argued that the brothers had been referred to the victims by past clients who’d been pleased with their work. The pair’s drop in work performance simply resulted from hard times, the attorney said.
"This is a situation where the Trager brothers started out with good intentions," Tarpey said. "They took on a business when they shouldn’t have."
The attorney believes that the stress of the case was a factor in Mark Trager’s death, and that his surviving sibling has learned his lesson.
"The root cause of them doing what they did is that they got backed up," Tarpey said. ••
Reporter Lauren Fritsky can be reached at 215-354-3038 or lfritsky@phillynews.com