The Right Stiff
Everyone loves developer Douglas Jemal—except for the small contractors he refuses to pay.
Cover Story
Eric Denchfield started working to support his mom and five siblings during his senior year at St. John’s Military High School. After graduation, he ditched plans for college and soon started his own roofing company, DHI Construction. Now, at 39, he can afford to save money for his three girls’ education and take his family on weekend trips to a bungalow in Ocean City, Md.
But with 20 years in this business, Denchfield knows it takes only one bad deal to put everything in jeopardy. It’s a lesson he learned from a developer named Douglas Jemal.
In the summer of 2000, Denchfield won a bid with Jemal’s Douglas Development to put the roof on the old People’s Drug warehouse, a 350,000-square-foot property on New York Avenue NE that now houses government offices. Jemal’s payments were slow from the start. After a few months, they stopped entirely, recalls Denchfield during an interview in his cramped construction office, nestled next to the laundry room of a redbrick apartment building he owns in Takoma Park.
When he complained to the superintendents Jemal hired to oversee construction, Denchfield says, “They’d always said, ‘I’m not in that department.’ ” The answer always came from a different person. Turnover among supers was high—Denchfield dealt with five different men in six months. “I guess it was a stressful job,” he says. “The superintendents were caught in the middle.”
Even though Jemal owed him more than $100,000, Denchfield kept working. More than a year passed before he went after his money. ... Continued 
Issue of Apr. 13 - 19, 2007
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