Copar invades Charlestown (continued)

Meet the new neighbors, Part 2

By Will Collette

Randy Roberge from his LinkedIn profile

This is a continuing series on Charlestown's newest business, Connecticut-based Copar Quarries, which took over the Morrone business on Route 91. For the past two years, Copar has plagued Bradford and nearby Charlestown residents with its notorious Bradford granite quarry. Click here for more.

In Part 1 of “Meet the New Neighbors,” we introduced you to Phil Armetta whose waste disposal empire address was listed as the principal office for the Copar Quarries four month old operation in Charlestown when Copar filed its belated application for a Charlestown business license.

In today’s installment, we’ll take a hard look at Randal (“Randy”) S. Roberge who is listed on that same Copar Rhode Island corporation registration as Copar’s “Resident Agent” for its Charlestown operations.

Calling Roberge “resident agent” uses that term loosely, since Roberge actually lives in Bristol, CT. Under RI General Laws 7-16-11(a)(1), for a person to be the resident agent of a Limited Liability Corporation, like Copar Quarries of RI, LLC, that person must be “An individual resident of this state[1].”

Roberge owns his “owner-occupied” home at 30 Summerberry Road in Bristol, CT with his wife, and voted using that address in the 2012 election. Newly updated utility records show Roberge’s home as that address in Bristol. I could find no home listing for Roberge in Rhode Island in Westlaw or any other database.

Randy Roberge has been a pretty low-key figure within Copar, even as battles at Westerly Town Hall raged. There may be a good reason for Roberge staying on the down-low.

Chief among them might be this: Roberge was the Chief Financial Officer of MLN (Mortgage Lenders Network), a major player in the sub-prime mortgage market, which suffered a spectacular crash in 2007. 

The company went bankrupt and 1800 people lost their jobs. This caused lots more collateral damage including a share of the blame for triggering the national real estate market collapse.

While the ruins of MLN were still smoking, Roberge and several other MLN executives formed a new lending company called InHome Capital LLC.  But this time, the regulators were wise to them and denied their new applications as mortgage brokers.

Click here to read the denial letter to Roberge from the Connecticut Banking Commissioner. The choicest parts are the Commissioner’s recitation of all the misdeeds of MLN and its officers, including the arrest warrant requested by the Connecticut Labor Department for the MLN’s ex-CEO for failing to pay more than $3 million in overdue wages.

Connecticut Banking Commissioner Howard Pitkin singled out Roberge because he was MLN's Chief Financial Officer and wrote this to Roberge:

“Section 36a-489(a) of the Connecticut General Statutes requires me to find that an applicant for a first mortgage broker license… [has] the financial responsibility, character, reputation, integrity and general fitness of the applicant… to warrant belief that the business will be operated soundly and efficiently, in the public interest and consistent with the purposes of Sections 36a-485 to 36a-498a, inclusive, of the Connecticut General Statutes….

“I am unable to find at this time that you, as the member of senior management responsible for the legal, compliance and finance functions at MLN, possess the financial responsibility, character, reputation, integrity and general fitness such as to warrant belief that the business of the Applicant will be operated soundly and efficiently….” 

Roberge drew this rebuke from Banking Commissioner Pitkin for his conduct while serving as Chief Financial Officer (CFO) for the Mortgage Lenders Network. Roberge’s title with Copar Industries, Inc. is Chief Financial Officer (CFO) in addition to acting as "resident agent" for Copar's Rhode Island subsidiaries.

After Banking Commissioner Pitkin's scathing letter, the Hartford Courant asked Roberge for an interview, which he refused. He sent them this e-mailed statement: ”

It was and continues to be our hope to develop a mortgage broker firm which would employ many of the former employees affected by the closing of MLN, as well as others impacted by the downturn in the mortgage industry.” 

That never happened.

There’s a small irony to the state of Connecticut refusing a mortgage broker license to Roberge based on his track record. While many governmental agencies have “good character” or “bad actor” rules that prevent persons or companies with unsavory histories from getting licenses or contracts, the town of Charlestown has no such provision.

Even though the Charlestown Town Council enacted a resolution condemning Copar’s conduct in Bradford in great detail – and even posted it on the homepage of the Town’s official website –  Charlestown gave Copar a business license. Even though they filed three months late. With no penalty.

Personally, I think Charlestown ought to remove the link to that resolution from its website since it’s pretty clear that it has no meaning. But our CCA Party Council majority loves its cheap political tricks and empty gestures. This one rates about a 9.0 to 9.5 on the hypocrisy meter.

So, now back to Randy Roberge, Copar’s resident agent who is not a Rhode Island resident in pretty direct violation of state law. I suppose that now that I’ve blown the whistle on them, Copar will look for somebody, anybody, who is a Rhode Island resident and can front for them on their Rhode Island corporate documents.

Of course, I’m not holding my breath for Charlestown to actually do something about this latest violation.

So in my previous article I introduced you to Phil Armetta, called “Connecticut’s Trash Titan” by the Hartford Courant, who has a history of investing in businesses of this nature. And here you’ve meet Copar’s CFO who is presumably responsible for managing Armetta’s investment capital and company revenue.

In the next installments, we’ll take a look at the rest of Copar’s senior management team.

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FOOTNOTE

[1] Here’s the instruction the RI Secretary of State gives to applicants for a corporate registration:

What are a registered agent and a registered office?

The registered agent’s role is to receive legal process, notice, or demand required or permitted by law to be served upon the entity at the registered office. Each entity is required by statute to have and continuously maintain in this state a registered agent and a registered office. Approval from a proposed agent must be obtained prior to designation. An entity cannot designate itself as its own registered agent. The agent may be either an individual resident in this state or a domestic or foreign entity that is qualified to conduct business in this state. Please refer to the applicable Chapter of Title 7 for a more specific definition of an acceptable agent for your entity.