On July 30, we posted a report that the contractor who excavated Pacific’s hillside without a permit was ordered to go to prison for acts committed far from Pacific. We said at the end of our article that we could not confirm that he actually showed up at the prison.
It turns out that was a wise disclaimer. The wily contractor avoided serving any time behind bars after all. And he did it legally.
In 2017, Chad Neal, operating Orchid Development Company, promised to build a huge commercial development on the hillside north of West Osage and I-44. He spent 18 days knocking down trees and stripping away the vegetation on the steep hillside, without an excavation permit.
At the time he was excavating in Pacific, Neal was under indictment in federal court for fraud in 105 unsatisfied contracts dating back to 2008.
At first he pleaded not guilty to the charges, but in September 2019 he changed his plea from not guilty to guilty of mail fraud. The Court accepted the guilty plea, sentenced him to 57 months in federal prison and ordered him to make restitution of $3.6 million to the vendors he defrauded.
He began a saga to avoid jail time with paper work.
He was ordered to self surrender to the California Department of Corrections on April 8, 2020. He asked for and was granted an extension until delay his surrender to July 5, 2020.
He requested and was granted another extension, which set his surrender date to October 24, 2020. Following his request that surrender date was extended to March 20, 2021. Rather than surrender he sent two more requests for delay, which set his surrender date at July 9, and then to July 12, 2021.
Before his July 12 surrender date, Neal had one more appeal for the court. He asked the court to allow him to serve his time as a supervised release. The Court approved him for supervision release for a term for not 57 months, but to 36 months.
He never stepped foot inside a prison, and won’t, assuming he doesn’t violate his release conditions.
In the interest of full disclosure, we were not able to confirm that he made any of the $3.6 million in restitution to the contractors he defrauded.
Pacific Resident Nick Cozby participated in the research for this article.
