Spring Hill man accused of defrauding women in air conditioning repair case

SPRING HILL – Check by check, the bill for air conditioning repairs has skyrocketed.

Over 18 months, investigators said, a Spring Hill woman and her elderly mother paid Joshua Ryan Green nearly $ 80,000 for repairs, but the woman’s home remained warm. By comparison, the woman’s entire property on Horizon Drive, including her four-bedroom house built in 1980, is worth $ 94,943, according to county property records.

“The mother used the money she had set aside for her funeral to help her daughter,” said Hernando Sheriff’s Detective William Horvath, who investigated the case.

Green from Spring Hill surrendered on September 9 after discovering he was wanted on a warrant for an organized fraud scheme. He remains in the Hernando County Detention Center in lieu of a $ 100,000 bond and has a status hearing today in Hernando Circuit Court.

The amount Green took in the alleged scheme turns the charge into a first degree felony, punishable by up to 30 years in prison.

Horvath’s report gives this account:

The woman first met Green while working for Crystal Air Corp. from Spring Hill. Then he offered to work for the woman next door so that she didn’t have to pay for a service call.

Between December 2011 and May of this year, the woman wrote 81 green checks totaling $ 79,495.00. Checks ranged from a few hundred dollars to $ 5,200. The last one cost $ 900 to add freon to the system. Green asked the woman to cash the checks.

Crystal Air owner George Haynes told Horvath that Green worked for him for about five years before he was laid off in July 2012. Haynes said he made his last legitimate service call home. of the woman in April 2011.

Haynes said Green had lived with Haynes’ son for a while, but was asked to leave in 2011 because he had a drug problem.

Horvath subpoenaed bank statements and surveillance video showing Green cashed the checks.

After Green’s arrest, a Brooksville woman told investigators she paid him $ 12,762 for work done on nine service visits between July 8 and August 30. The woman said she had known Green from childhood and trusted him when he offered to check his tune. -Conditioning unit. She had to pay another company $ 5,000 to repair the damage caused by Green. This case could lead to another charge.

In both cases, a technician told Horvath that the ducts were damaged or poorly made.

“Their air conditioning unit was working, but it was just cooling the attic,” Horvath said.

State records show Green was previously arrested in Florida – a misdemeanor possession of marijuana charge that was later dropped.

News researcher Carolyn Edds contributed to this report. Tony Marrero can be contacted at tmarrero@tampabay.com or (352) 848-1431. Follow @tmarrerotimes on Twitter.