Desperate and Reckless

Imagine you’ve scrimped and saved money to one day build your dream home. You selected the location and the construction company to work with—a brand new home to your specifications is within your grasp. Until it isn’t.

As homeowners who had their dream home built to our specifications, we would have been devastated to lose the money we’d saved, the home, the dream. You pay as the construction proceeds because the builder can’t afford to do all the work prior to receiving payments. But to pay the money and see little to no work being done had to be heartbreaking.

In this case, I doubt the victims knew the builder was a felon convicted of similar crimes a decade before, for which he received probation. They also probably didn’t know he had other victims.

Purchasing the lot was part of the construction package. What the victims didn’t know was that the builder had sold the same lot to two or three different clients.

One news source reported they found the builder had dozens of lawsuits against him for failing to finish projects.

The authorities arrested him. Prosecutors accused him of scamming clients for over $2 million, and the court set his bail at $1 million. He asked the court for his bail to be lowered. In response to his request, the judge cancelled his bail altogether, citing there was too much money involved.

Forensic accountants from the FBI and Sheriff’s Office could not find the money—over $2 million the victims had given him.

The case went to trial anyway. And after about one hour of deliberation, the jury found the homebuilder guilty of a breach of trust and for obtaining property under false pretenses.

At the sentencing, an assistant solicitor said about the builder,

 

“He was desperate and reckless.” He added, “He didn’t care that he had stolen all this money.”

The eight victims in this case expected they would never get their money back, but his going to prison was how he’d pay for his crimes.

The judge sentenced him to twenty years in prison less the days already served. Prosecutors plan to pursue this homebuilder with other crimes, acknowledging there were more victims.

Source: WSOC-TV, The Herald, WBTV-3

All data and information provided is for information and research purposes only and not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, or individual. Criminal cases may have been appealed or verdicts overturned since I researched the case. All information is provided on an as-is basis.