Reader's Watchdog: Complaints against brothers span 3 states

The next time you want to hire a contractor without doing your homework, consider the trail of misery that two brothers laid on dozens of people for whom they agreed to do work in Iowa and two other states.

It's a decision Kimberly and Paul Hutchinson made last summer and now deeply regret. It's also one that can serve as a lesson to others.

The Bondurant couple hired Marvin Todd Lawson and his company, Whitetail Construction of Moulton, a small town in southeast Iowa, after hearing about him through a friend. They gave Lawson $1,491 as a down payment to build a pole barn.

But Lawson never started the job, they say. Calls, texts and a certified letter to the contractor and his wife yielded nothing.

The sheriff's departments in Polk County and Appanoose County, where Lawson lives, told the couple to contact the Consumer Protection Division at the Iowa attorney general's office. They also filed complaints with the Better Business Bureau and in small claims court.

Kimberly Hutchinson also discovered several online complaints about Lawson and his brother and fellow contractor Jeremy Lawson. She contacted the Reader's Watchdog, asking why authorities didn't seem more interested.

"I want him to face criminal charges," she said of Marvin Lawson, who often goes by his middle name. "I also want everybody to be aware and check contractors out. I don't want anybody to be taken like we were."

Lawson, 34, and Jeremy, 39 — both felons — have racked up criminal convictions, civil court judgments and allegations of construction fraud and theft in at least four counties in Missouri, four in Illinois and 19 in Iowa: Appanoose, Boone, Clarke, Davis, Greene, Grundy, Ida, Iowa, Jones, Linn, Marion, Marshall, Mills, Muscatine, Polk, Tama, Taylor, Wapello and Wayne, according to court records and law enforcement in all three states.

Despite all the similar allegations, they have thus far been handled piecemeal — from one jurisdiction to another. It doesn't appear any law enforcement agency has tried to string together a larger pattern of alleged thefts.

Victims told me they've received little feedback from the Iowa attorney general's office. But when asked last week, an official there acknowledged both brothers' companies are being investigated for potential civil consumer protection violations.

Several messages left for Marvin Lawson on several cell numbers he provided to potential customers went unreturned.

Lawson has been convicted of drunken driving and driving with a suspended license, assault in Missouri and a felony for willful injury committed a decade ago in Iowa, court records show.

More important, he has a slew of civil court cases lodged against him — in Appanoose, Jones, Mills, Wapello and Wright counties in Iowa — by lenders and former customers. In Clarke County, the sheriff's department has issued a warrant for his arrest stemming from an alleged theft there.

In early November, a sheriff's department in Missouri took the unusual step of warning residents about Lawson in a public service announcement.

The message from the Buchanan County department urged people to beware of Whitetail Construction because of fraudulent construction practices. The department now has an open criminal investigation into Whitetail's business activities.

On the Better Business Bureau's website, Whitetail Construction rates an "F" and has six complaints from consumers in the last 12 months.

The Hutchinsons say they learned about Marvin Todd Lawson from Gary Crees Jr. and Gary Crees Sr., 72, who were taken, too.

Gary Crees Jr., 35, said his dad wanted to build a roughly $23,000 work building with living quarters on his farm in New Virginia. They were getting bids from different contractors and found Lawson on Craigs­list.

"We met with him and met his kids and his wife," Crees said. "He said he was starting a new company, and he made it sound good. He said he could get metal at a discount. It sounded cheaper."

Crees said his father signed a contract and gave Lawson more than $5,000 for a down payment. Construction was supposed to start June 23.

"Then it was excuse after excuse after excuse," Crees Jr. said. "He'd disappear, and we'd track him to four or five cell numbers."

Crees Sr. is filing another small claims case against Lawson, who has told customers his business went bankrupt, his son said.

A handful of similar cases have been filed in small claims court — one by an Iowa attorney — and six complaints have been filed with the attorney general's office.

Among those who say they were victims:

•Patrick and LeAnn McFarland of New Virginia reported that a woman quoted them the price for their project over the phone, and Todd Lawson collected a down payment of $2,700 in July before disappearing.

•David Windler of Lisbon said he gave Todd Lawson a $1,860 down payment in August before Lawson vanished.

•Mike Heller of Clarion said he found Todd Lawson on Craigslist and gave him $1,507 before he disappeared in May.

•That same month, Kevin McGill of Des Moines handed over $2,400 as down payment for a machine shed, and Russ Amundson of Boone gave Lawson a $1,335 down payment for a small garage.

None of the work ever started.

"My lawyer wrote them a letter and that went nowhere," McGill told me. "I finally got ahold of Todd and he accused his brother (Jeremy) of having ripped him off. He said he didn't even have gas money to get up here to finish the job."

Said Amundson: "I called the Boone County Sheriff's Department, and they said it's a small claims matter. But I talked to a state's attorney and she said it was a crime. I have come to grips with the fact that I'm not going to get my money back, but I want justice."

Jeremy Lawson's record includes multiple convictions for theft.

Illinois authorities have issued public announcements acknowledging that he is under criminal investigation for projects that never happened.

In Knox County, Ill., authorities have posted alerts online about scams there and in nearby Hancock County involving Sturdy Builders, one of Jeremy Lawson's companies.

That company also rates an "F" on the BBB website, generating 16 complaints in three years.

(Sturdy Builders also has been named in about a dozen complaints to the Iowa attorney general's office containing the same types of allegations.)

Hancock County Sheriff's Detective Scott Cowser told me many of the complaints he's received about Jeremy also include Marvin Todd Lawson.

"I have been contacted by 25 or more people," he said. "Some allege Marvin Todd Lawson is behind the thefts, too."

Cowser said he just interviewed a man who claimed both brothers swindled him out of $22,000 — $5,000 by Todd, $17,000 by Jeremy.

"Jeremy called this man and said his brother was ruining their family name, that he never finished the jobs," Cowser said. "Jeremy said he couldn't get the man his money back, but he would build the building. So the man gave him another $17,000 to do the work, and he fell for it, and then Jeremy disappeared."

Cowser this year lodged two felony theft charges against Jeremy on behalf of two other victims in his county.

In both cases, no materials were delivered and no work was done, he said.

Cowser said he has tracked other problems related to the brothers to nine counties in Iowa, as well as Missouri and Illinois.

In some cases, he said, money was taken and work never happened. Other times, materials were purchased but no work began.

And in some, work started but was never completed.

Cowser said he had not yet reached out to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Illinois, the likely prosecutor of state-to-state crimes in Illinois.

"I've just been encouraging victims to talk to local law enforcement," he said. "I've been focusing on trying to get justice for the two victims in our county."

I told Cowser the Iowans I interviewed wanted a larger investigation into the Lawsons' activities. Cowser said he'll likely call the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Appanoose County Attorney Susan Daniels said the sheriff has aided in other investigations, but does not have any active cases against the brothers.

Daniels said she believed Story County Attorney Stephen Holmes was also investigating, but Holmes was reluctant to acknowledge that.

Holmes warned me construction fraud schemes are difficult to prosecute, in part because a prosecutor has to prove contractors aren't just having financial difficulties when they fail to complete jobs. Prosecutors need to show intent — sometimes via a pattern and practice using evidence like bank statements and business records, as well as testimony from other victims, he said.

"The best thing you are going to want to look for is several other homeowners ahead of your victim who have had the same conversations and the same thing happened," he said.

Exactly.

Lee Rood's Reader's Watchdog column helps Iowans get answers and accountability from public officials, the justice system, businesses and nonprofits. Contact her at lrood@dmreg.com, 515-284-8549 on Twitter @leerood or at Facebook.com/readerswatchdog.