False Pretenses, Home Repair Fraud Among Charges For Contractor Who Allegedly Pocketed $57K To Build Home Addition, But Only Gave Homeowners A Concrete Slab; Cops Gave Suspect Pre-Arrest Opportunity To Complete The Work, Then Gave Him The Pinch For Not Performing

In Kingston, Oklahoma, KXII-TV Channel 12 reports:

• When we got to the Marshall County Sheriff’s Office, people were still coming in, filing complaints against 35-year-old Rusty Summit of Durant.
  
  “There’s not even a word for it,” Kristi Wade said. “Well if there was, it’d be a big curse word,” David Wade said.
  
  The Kingston couple said they hired Summit to build a workshop with an apartment back in August, when they turned their summer property into a permanent residence.
  
  Over the next several months, the couple said they paid Summit a total of $57,000, but all they got was an even concrete slab and a long list of excuses.
  
  “He had a head-on collision car wreck in December and that’s one reason he had been out of contact,” Mr. Wade said. “And his wife contacted my wife instead of him contacting me and I thought that was a little weird.”
  
  Then, Wade said, Summit stopped returning his calls. So they called the sheriff’s office.
  
  Marshall County Sheriff Danny Cryer said Summit told them he’d fallen behind, so they gave him another chance, but he still refused to do the work he was hired for.
  
  “He had a crew of workers that showed up and stayed for about an hour,” Cryer said. “And then left. The work was severely substandard.”
  
  Summit was arrested Friday morning [March 17], for Embezzlement and False Pretenses under the Home Repair Fraud Act.
  
  “We have been working with the Bryan County District Attorney’s Office, some of their investigators, and found that Mr. Summit has made a habit of this kind of business,” Cryer said.
  
  About a dozen separate cases so far that Cryer knows about.
  
  “Our new home here,” Mrs. Wade said. “We have a plan. Our two year plan is now a ten year plan and we live in the weekend place until we find the right people to do the right job.”
  
  The couple said they wished they would have performed a background check on Summit before they hired him.
  
  Sheriff Danny Cryer recommends people check multiple references and the Better Business Bureau before handing over any money.

Source: Durant man arrested for embezzling $57K from Kingston couple.