PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Authorities have charged a Philadelphia contractor they say defrauded about a dozen homeowners out of at least $420,000 — and they say there could be more victims.
Juan Rodriquez ran DSV Construction Services (no relation to DSV Construction, another contractor), and prosecutors say he took full payment from customers, sometimes walking off the job halfway through or sometimes never even starting.
“In one particularly egregious example, Rodriguez took money from a victim to rebuild a house after a fire. Now, what’s significant about that fire is that it killed her mother, so you have a grieving victim who pays money to this contractor, and that grieving victim is left with a shell of a house,” Assistant District Attorney Anthony Gil said.
“He told our detectives that, in many of these cases, he had disagreements with the homeowners about change orders, and then walked off the job. However, these homeowners confirmed to our detectives that they wanted him to finish all the jobs and in fact called him over and over and over again.”
Rodriguez never responded, Gil said.
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“Finally, Rodriguez told one victim that he couldn’t complete the job because he got caught up with the George Floyd protests. We found that despite his statement to that victim, Rodriquez was taking money from other people at that time and completing other jobs,” Gil said.
Rodriguez blamed the pandemic and shortage of supplies, said Gil, but the scheme ran from 2017 to 2021 — starting way before the pandemic.
Rodriguez has been charged with about a dozen counts of home improvement fraud, theft by unlawful taking, receiving stolen property and related offenses.
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