VERO BEACH, Fla. — Customers of a Stuart roofing company are sharing their frustrations after a former employee allegedly embezzled thousands of dollars from the company, leaving them with stalled projects.
Contact 5 spoke in October with Tim Mehaffey who owns Roof It Better in Stuart.
He's been trying to recoup his losses after a former employee allegedly stole from his company and about 50 of their customers.
Contact 5 also spoke with another local company, Alliance Group, LLC in Port St. Lucie in October, who said the same former employee stole from them as well before he went to work for Roof It Better.
"We have a $27,000 job that a lady says she paid $5,000 cash for. I have no record of it," Mehaffey told Contact 5 in October.
Mehaffey said the former employee stole between $200,000 to $300,000 from his company.
Months later, we're meeting Kevin Pittman, a customer of Roof It Better who lives in Vero Beach.
"I understood, at the time, that Tim was dealing with all of this," Pittman said. "I was sympathetic to his ordeal."
He said construction on his roof stalled when the alleged crime happened. Since then, they've hit more roadblocks.
"The roof went on and then, 'Oh, we don't have enough material.' Some of the material that was here wasn't the correct material," Pittman said. "I actually got a lien filed against the house yesterday because the material hasn't been paid for, and when I asked Tim this last time, I never got an answer."
Mehaffey sent Contact 5 an email earlier this week with the following message:
"The roof has been completed and in fact, it was the first of forty that we completed. The issue has been that we have had four inspections on the roof. We fix what they find, and then they find something new. I have reached out to the chief building official and expressed my frustrations with them not being able to give us a complete final inspection. He assured me that this last inspection request was all we would need to fix in order to pass the final."
Meanwhile, the St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office is investigating the claims against Mehaffey's former employee.
Contact 5 is not naming that individual at this time because he has not been arrested or charged.
All of that side, customers like Pittman are just ready to have a finished product.
"The stress aspect of it between the two hurricanes we've had to go through while this process is on," Pittman said. "I just wanted to make sure that we put our side of the story out there."