Fraud continues to be an unwanted yet recurring part of the roofing industry, but in a win for more scrupulous professionals, two roofing contractors have been arrested for allegedly trying to defraud customers.
According to the Standard-Examiner, a roofing contractor from Odgen, Utah, was arrested on charges of defrauding homeowners in Roy, Utah and other communities. Multiple law enforcement offices have investigations involving Anthony Tobias Aguilar and reports of him abandoning roofing and other home projects he after customers provided down payments.
Aguilar, 55, faces three criminal cases in the Second District Court, each for second-degree felony communications fraud and class A misdemeanor contracting without a license.
The Weber County Sheriff’s Office claims Aguilar defrauded several people by entering into contracts with them for home projects, taking a down payment, then allegedly doing some of the work but never completing it nor offering a refund. The sheriff’s office has seven cases against Aguilar, according to a probable cause statement.
Regarding roofing work, charging documents say in Roy, a customer paid Aguilar $6,000 down on a $10,000 roof job, but he is said to have tore off a third of the roof and never finished the job. Another Roy customer claimed Aguilar collected $7,600 for a roofing project, completing 60% of the work and ignoring attempts to be contacted after leaving the job unfinished.
In a Facebook post, the Weber County Sheriff’s Office is asking other victims to come forward.
“We believe Tony has other victims who have either not made a report or have been told it is a civil issue,” the post states.
The Standard-Examiner reports Aguilar was initially freed from jail after posting a $2,500 bond, but a judge ordered him to be held without bail and told him to report to jail the day after Christmas.
On the other side of the country, Christopher Lee Culig of Deland, Fla., was arrested on Wednesday by the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office, according to Villages-News.com. The arrest is related to a felony charge alleging he forged a document.
A resident of the Villages, one of the largest retirement communities in the United States, reported that Culig, 36, had worked on her neighbor’s home. Arrest documents state he forged her name on a notice of commencement form submitted to the Sumter County Clerk of Courts office. The notices are filed publicly in county records to indicate when a construction project is beginning. The Villages-News reports Culig submitted the allegedly forged document that was later approved.
