A couple who owned a defunct midcoast contracting business accused of defrauding customers have lost a civil case by default.
That comes after Malcolm and Elizabeth Stewart, formerly of Washington and who now live in South Carolina, ducked out of a Zoom court hearing before a Knox County judge during the opening of the civil trial, according to the Courier-Gazette.
The Maine attorney general’s office asked for a default judgment, and Justice Bruce Mallonee will order $744,253 in restitution for more than a dozen homeowners, the Courier-Gazette reported.
The court will later finalize the judgment.
Malcolm Stewart still faces a criminal trial for two counts of theft by authorized taking. Stewart allegedly took deposits from 57 customers for home construction work that was never done.
Stewart pleaded not guilty to both counts.
Stewart abruptly closed his Union-based business, Castle Builders, in September 2019, leaving clients with unfinished projects that had already been paid and 22 employees out of work.
The total amount of money Stewart gained through this process was more than $400,000. Despite receiving deposits from these customers, Stewart usually performed no work for the money, but in a few instances a minimal amount of work was started, according to the Maine attorney general’s office.
Stewart also received an advance $50,000 loan from two customers in December 2018. He allegedly told the customers he had “cash flow problems because customers were not paying him,” the attorney general’s office said at the time of the indictment.
While he claimed to have the capacity to pay back the loan when the customers gave him money, Stewart never repaid the loan.