Pool contractor, wife guilty in theft case

Here's an article about the fine line between criminal and civil conduct. The article describes a pool contractor who in one instance took $90,000 for a pool and proceeded to dig a big hole and did nothing else. Apparently, he did this or a variation of it 19 times. Normally, an aggrieved home owner's only option is to sue in civil court. The district attorney thought that this rose above the norm sufficiently to bring a criminal action. As an aside and as the IELB's astute readers know, there are no civil cases in RivCo, only criminal ones.

The Browns defended themselves by stating that employee salaries and worker's compensation in combination with poor management ate them up. I'm sure there is some truth to this, but it's hard to imagine circumstances justifying Brown's receipt of $90K and doing nothing except digging a big hole.

It is common for contractors to get behind projects where they use their downpayments on future projects to complete current projects. The Constractor's STate Licensing Board is supposed to ensure this doesn't happen by enforcing the law limiting down payments to $1000 or ten percent. Brown should never have gotten a $90,000 down payment. Still, I'm troubled by the district attorney's action here. Let's ask the question why did the contractor need to use funds from the future project for the present projects. Like I said, this is very common, and is usually the result of some unforeseen contingency. On construction projects, problems are the rule rather than the exception. Someone, either the architect, the general contractor or a subcontractor will miss something they were required to handle. When this happen, the party at fault starts blaming everyone else. The result is that everyone loses, even the parties not at fault. I've seen general contractors able to avoid their own mismanagement at the expense of subcontractors. So what of these subcontractors, victimized by the Goliath's? They use funds from other projects to make payroll, pay payroll taxes, and pay worker's compensation. It would be very unfortunate for the DA to prosecute these individuals, but something tells me that it may become the norm.

At any rate, let's close on this: Let this be a lesson to any consumers out there. Pay only the minimal downpayment required by law. You cannot rely upon the contractors having fear of the district attorney. They're too busy trying to rescue earlier projects.