‘Stucco Steve’ ripped off Key West condo owners for $50K, police say
“Stucco Steve” landed in the clink for failing to live up to his name, police say.
In 2018 the Homestead plasterer accepted a $50,000 check from a Key West condominium complex, after having agreed to do stucco work there, but disappeared with the money, investigators said.
No work was done, according to the warrant for Steve Howard, 51, who was arrested March 4 on a felony charge of grand theft.
Howard walked out of the Plantation Key jail on the same day after posting $75,000 bond.
Howard struck a deal with the Halyard Condominium Association, which amounts to eight waterfront condos at 30 Hilton Haven Road, in June 2019, to do stucco repairs., according to an investigation by the Monroe County State Attorney’s Office.
The group sent Howard a check made out to “Stucco Steve,” and later the association’s president, Alice Hyatt, contacted Howard several times asking for a copy of a building permit and a start date, SAO Investigator Frank Zamora said.
Howard replied that he had been injured and said he would either return the money or provide a start date.
“He did neither,” said SAO spokesman Larry Kahn.
Howard didn’t return a phone message Thursday.
In early December, the condo association’s attorney emailed State Attorney Dennis Ward’s office.
The next day, Zamora called Howard, who said he had severed a body part in an accident and couldn’t do the work, the warrant states.
Zamora said he asked Howard to return the $50,000 but Howard said he didn’t have it.
Monroe County deputies arrested Howard on the warrant during a traffic stop at mile marker 105 in Key Largo, where Howard was born and raised, according to his Stucco Steve Plastering company’s Yelp profile. He started Stucco Steve Plastering in 1996 after working for his father for 21 years, the profile says.
This story was originally published March 5, 2020 at 5:23 PM.
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