The Ohio Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Section is a valuable law enforcement resource in the fight against multi-county scams.
“When law enforcement gets a report of someone scamming their community or a suspicious contractor rolling around, we may have information about that person, that business or associated businesses that is extremely valuable in an investigation,” said Jonathan Blanton, section chief.
“Our Economic Crimes Unit has been successful in linking law enforcement across counties.” As a former Jackson County prosecutor, Blanton knows how law enforcement can be aware of a scam in their area without realizing that it is also operating elsewhere.
“In Consumer Protection, we’ve been able to use the information we have to build some pretty successful cases against contractors who skip around counties and rip off people.”
Blanton wants to encourage officers to call Consumer Protection when a scam pops up.
“We would love to leverage the information we have for the greater good,” Blanton said.
For example, in March, the section’s Economic Crimes Unit worked with law enforcement and prosecutors from Union County to build a case against James Twaddle of Reynoldsburg. The storm-chasing home-repair contractor operated as Restore It USA and stole more than $150,000 from 40 victims throughout central and southwest Ohio.
“We started seeing a pattern develop,” Blanton said. “We started getting complaints in 2013. They were sprinkled throughout Ohio in Hamilton, Union, Ross and Franklin counties. The scam didn’t involve huge amounts of money in any single county. We started chasing data and realized that Twaddle was behind it. We worked on the investigation and partnered with local law enforcement and the Union County prosecutor’s office and were able to indict Twaddle.”
He was sentenced to 59 months in prison and ordered to pay more than $153,000 in restitution.
Anyone who suspects a scam should contact the Ohio Attorney General’s Office at 800-282-0515 or
www.OhioAttorneyGeneral.gov.