This story will be updated.
The Maine excavation contractor accused of taking money upfront for shoddy or undone work was arrested Wednesday on felony charges.
It came the day after the Bangor Daily News published a story on Jake Brown of Palermo, whose company, JBRH Excavation and Welding Fabrication, already faces $400,000 in judgments that came after former clients filed civil lawsuits across Maine. Interviews with more former clients indicate that the damage across the state could be far higher.
The Waldo County jail confirmed Thursday that Brown was arrested by the Maine State Police and is at the Belfast jail on a warrant out of Somerset County for failure to appear on a class B theft charge and a Class C charge out of Waldo County of negotiating a worthless instrument, an offense usually reserved for writing bad checks.
He is expected in a Belfast court on Friday to answer for the Waldo County charge, a jail official said. No further information was available on the alleged conduct that prompted the charges.
In an interview last week, Brown denied that he owes many of the sums that former clients alleged, though he acknowledged that he owes money on certain jobs. He did not answer a phone call on Friday, and it was unclear whether or not he had a lawyer.
