Warrant: HVAC Contractor’s Refund Check Bounced

New Canaan Police on Nov. 6 arrested a 61-year-old Woodbury man by warrant after he failed to do a contracted home job and then bounced a returned refund check, documents show.

Authorities here learned about the contractor when a local homeowner came to New Canaan Police Department headquarters on a Monday afternoon in February saying he’d hired the man—Don Zemo of Prime Mechanical LLC—to do HVAC work on his house in October 2024, according to an arrest warrant application obtained by NewCanaanite.com through a public records request.

The man “stated that he paid Zemo a $5,800 deposit, which was half the cost of the job,” according to the affidavit of NCPD Officer Giancarlo Vincenzi, who applied for an arrest warrant signed by state Superior Court Judge John Blawie.

None of the HVAC work was ever done, the application said. The homeowner showed police several images of text messages trying to schedule a time for Zemo to start the work. After several months, the man told Zemo he wanted the $5,800 back. In December 2024, Zemo gave him a handwritten check that bounced, the application said.

Police tried multiple times to arrange for Zemo to reimburse the New Canaan homeowner before the latter pressed for criminal charges, but unsuccessfully. After not hearing back from Zemo following a final phone call in February of this year, Vincenzi applied for a warrant for third-degree larceny, a felony offense.

The NCPD-obtained warrant notes that a criminal records search showed Zemo has been arrested “for several similar offenses dating back to 2003.”

According to Connecticut Judicial Branch records, Zemo has also been arrested this year by police in Brookfield (third-degree larceny), Fairfield (third-degree larceny) and Stratford (first-degree larceny and issuing a bad check over $2,000).

New Canaan Police took custody of Zemo at the Fairfield Police Department on Nov. 6. He was released on $25,000 bond and scheduled to appear Nov. 24 in state Superior Court.