Police file 4th fraud case against remodeler
PENN TWP — The bankrupt owner of a kitchen design and remodeling business is accused of home improvement fraud — again.
Penn Township police last week filed their fourth case against Christian J. Sheasley, 48, of Hermitage, Mercer County.
The previous cases, filed between Nov. 14 and Jan. 22, are pending in Butler County Court.
Police in their latest charges allege Sheasley, then owner of Linx Creative Kitchen and Bath on Route 8 in Penn Township, defrauded a woman who paid him $16,680.
The money, charging documents said, represented the 80 percent down payment the victim gave the defendant Jan. 25, 2017, for new kitchen cabinets, quartz counter tops and doors.
The agreement was for materials only, police noted, not for installation. The woman told investigators that Sheasley promised her “everything would be ready in April 2017.”
But in March, documents said, the defendant informed her that he had to put her order on hold because of a “family medical issue.”
The victim recounted that she subsequently made numerous attempts to contact Sheasley but to no avail.
In November, she visited the business but learned that it had closed.
According to court records, the defendant Oct. 5 filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection.
The woman said she later received a call from the owner of the building that housed the now closed business, advising her that he had found boxes with her name on them there.
The boxes contained the kitchen cabinets and doors that she had previously ordered, documents said. The landlord delivered the boxed materials to her.
The counter tops, however, apparently were never ordered.
“(The victim) believes Sheasley never intended to deliver her cabinets, “according to a police affidavit, “and if it had not been the owner of the building recognizing her name on the cabinets stored at the business and delivering them to her, she could have never received them.”
District Judge Sue Haggerty on Feb. 21 issued police an arrest warrant for Sheasley on felony charges of home improvement fraud and theft by deception.
Police in the previous cases allege the defendant defrauded three other customers of a combined $50,895 for services that were never rendered or completed.
In those combined cases, he is charged with three felony counts each of home improvement fraud and theft by deception.
He is free on $20,000 unsecured bail while awaiting trial.
His attorney, Sean Logue of Carnegie, did not immediately return a telephone call Monday.
Meanwhile, online court records in Allegheny County show he is also facing criminal charges in four alleged home improvement fraud cases in Hampton Township, Mount Lebanon, Richland Township and Brackenridge.
