An initial appearance is scheduled for July 26 for an Elkhorn contractor suspected of spending more than $350,000 of a Town of LaGrange couple’s money for personal items, including cars and a house.
John M. Roberts, 59, was charged July 10 in Walworth County Circuit Court with theft by a contractor of more than $10,000.
According to the criminal complaint, a Town of LaGrange couple hired Roberts’ business, Roberts Design Corp., to tear down and rebuild their Lauderdale Drive home for $1.625 million in August 2014. The couple paid Roberts $81,250 down that month and then made deposits into an escrow account with Chicago Title Co. from which Roberts could withdraw for expenses related to the couple’s project, according to the complaint.
Between November 2014 and June 2015, Roberts deposited nearly $905,000 from the escrow account into his own bank account, according to the complaint. During that time, deposits into Roberts’ account that were from sources other than the account to be used for the couple’s project were less than $20,000.
During the same time period, Roberts wrote more than $360,000 in checks from his business account that were unrelated to the couple’s project and included things like the purchase of vehicles, including a $52,000 Mercedes and a lake home, checks to himself including one for $134,292 and his wife, payments to attorneys and related to a restaurant he owned, withdrawals of up to $10,000, a $5,000 payment to the Department of Revenue, payments of $3,270 and $1,695 to We Energies, according to the complaint, and $20,000 to a boat repair shop.
Work on the couple’s project stopped when Roberts was convicted of theft by deception related to another construction contract on June 8, 2015, according to the complaint. The couple began paying some subcontractors on their own because Roberts had stopped paying them.
They paid GF Construction $13,500 and Komfort Heating and Cooling, $11,050 but Dial One was still owed $17,797, Innovative Plumbing was owed $7,188 and Weber Builder’s, $24,650, the complaint states.
The couple hired an attorney and prepared for a civil trial that was to take place in June 2018 but was postponed when Roberts filed for bankruptcy, according to the complaint.
During testimony in preparation for the civil case, Roberts acknowledged the $134,292 check to himself in 2015 was to buy property in Michigan but claimed the money was from a line of credit on his main house, the complaint states. He said $30,000 in payments he made to Rock Track and Trail during the time frame he took deposits from the escrow account came from a personal line of credit.
He said the payments for his wife were used to pay her credit card that was used to buy lumber for the project, according to the complaint.
