Ammerman's Quality Construction

We hired Mr. Ammerman, (dba "Ammerman's Quality Construction" in Old Town, Maine) to clean and restore the site of a mid-February fire that consumed our small barn and car. Upon his arrival on March 12th (I thought) to begin work, I signed a contract in which the line item for "remove debris and clean up" came to $1200. My husband had prepared a check for $1000, Mr. Ammerman's previously requested down payment, but he asked me for an additional $100. I refused, and he accepted the $1000 figure. Ours sons had prepared the burned car, filling it with as much metal from the site as possible. After using a tractor to push the remaining debris into a precarious pile, Mr. Ammerman headed for the scrapyard to cash in the metal for $227.20. He never "removed" any more "debris", though, by now, he had taken $1227.20. Mr. Ammerman did return the next week to fill his trailer with some of the remaining debris, but left it on site until the transfer station would be open. Though he was scheduled to dispose of it on March 26th, we awoke to find an e-mail demand from Mr. Ammerman for an additional $500 and a threat to "Dump the s**t and leave" should we refuse. Though the amount he demanded dropped to $300 the threat remained. We had paid in full, plus a little more..... We declined. When Mr. Ammerman showed up to collect his tractor, my father was on hand to dissuade him from carrying out his threat to dump the trailer. He left without incident, my father and I unloaded his trailer into another and disposed of the contents ourselves. In response to a subsequent message "you owe me $300 to take the load to your dump or I drop it where it is" I instructed Mr. Ammerman, "You may come and collect your trailer, if you let me know when you will arrive, and dispense with the thuggish threats to dump anything anywhere. It is empty save for a bit of compost. There need not be any trouble." Though my husband was working, my father was again present. Mr. Ammerman collected his trailer without incident save for complaints of being expected to "work for free". We do not consider $1200+ "free".....? The contract clearly states that amount???? What on Earth was going on here? Mr. Ammerman has attempted to justify taking the money, and not performing the work by saying that he applied the funds we gave him to the time he spent preparing the estimate, along with vague references to equipment rental, gas, mileage etc. He advertises free quotes (I printed a copy for safekeeping). The contract allows $1200 in total to complete the work and makes no reference to any additional items. The money we paid was to satisfy our contract obligation, and Mr. Ammerman had no right to apply those funds elsewhere. In the interest of full disclosure, Mr. Ammerman is my brother-in-law. Also in the interest of full disclosure? I barely know him, and can count the number of times on one hand I've even met the man. I never wanted to hire Mr. Ammerman. I was concerned about the 70 mile distance and his ability to compete with such skilled and hardworking local people. He had lobbied my husband very aggressively, though, in order to pay the three-month arrears on his tractor debt. He sent an email to me asking for the clean-up job so that he "...could call up the tractor dealer and let them know I have work for it if not I will try to sell it.". Mr. Ammerman claims we "owe" him more money, and vowed to pursue it. While Mr. Ammerman spends our money, my 68-year-old father is on his way to help me finish the work.