Key West man said he was a contractor and took money from a customer. Then he was jailed
A Key West man hoodwinked a woman into paying him more than $29,000 for home building projects he never started and while he was not a licensed contractor, state prosecutors said.
Thomas Allan Andrews, 48, was arrested June 9 on a felony charge of grand theft and a misdemeanor charge of fraud by identifying himself as a contractor.
Andrews was booked into the Stock Island Detention Center and released the next day after posting a $20,000 bond.
Andrews took a $7,500 deposit for a $15,000 porch repair project on a Sugarloaf Key home from the homeowner’s mother and he gave her a contractor’s invoice, Monroe County state prosecutors said.
Then, five days later, Andrews took a $21,600 deposit on the $65,000 total he quoted her to remodel the woman’s own kitchen on Summerland Key, according to Frank Zamora, a State Attorney’s Office investigator.
The total loss of deposits was $29,100.
But no work was ever done on either project, prosecutors said. The victim’s son tried to contact Andrews several times by phone and then a text but couldn’t get through to leave messages.
The son later sent a certified letter to the Stock Island address listed on Andrews’ invoices, asking for all of the deposit money back and then filed a complaint with the State Attorney’s Office on Jan. 29, 2020, said SAO spokesman Larry Kahn.
On March 20, Zamora received confirmation from the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation that Andrews is not a licensed contractor in Florida.
Andrews has never held a Florida contracting license, according to the agency.
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