LaCoste seemingly headed to prison, but will his Northwest Florida victims be repaid?

PENSACOLA, Fla. — While Jesse LaCoste has been convicted of contractor fraud and is now facing up to 30 years in prison, his victims and remaining alleged victims fear they’ll never be repaid.

WEAR News reported Thursday that the former Pensacola contractor was found guilty of contractor fraud and theft in Escambia County court.

The State Attorney’s Office said from 2018-22, LaCoste defrauded people out of more than $2 million.

There are still other alleged victims with open cases in Santa Rosa and Okaloosa counties that are awaiting trials.

But will they all be repaid? The prosecution says the likelihood is fairly low.

“This is the first step in an important win” said Assistant State Attorney Paul Gillespie.

Valerie Schofield says she’s one of LaCoste’s victims.

She says she paid LaCoste $35,000 to repair her home after Hurricane Sally, but he never finished the work.

“Nothing has happened. And now, a year down the road, and still no work has begun,” Schofield said.

She has yet to be repaid any of that money.

Tyler Wynn says he and his family also got scammed, paying LaCoste hundreds of thousands to build their “True REST Float Spa” in Pensacola. They claim LaCoste never held up his end of the deal.

“We were planning on this being a very easy-peasy turnkey solution,” Wynn said. “We just we give you the money, we get the business open and we have all this extra money to begin hiring employees and stuff. But we had to get rid of all the financial security.”

WEAR News previously reported that the Santa Rosa County Contractor Competency Board ordered LaCoste to pay Wynn more than $230,000, but Wynn says he never did.

Both Wynn and Schofield say they’re pleased with the conviction, but they fear they, as well as other victims, will never be repaid.

“The majority of us don’t have the funds to recoup the damages that’s already been had. Some of us had to sell our home and move in with family,” Schofield said.

“We’ve already kind of bit that bullet,” Wynn said. “We kind of came to terms that we will not get any money back for any reason at all. But what we want now is just justice. We want just for him to atone for the horrible things that he did.”

Gillespie says the state wants that too.

“It’s our intentions to try and get justice for every victim that we can,” he said. “Every victim that we have a case that’s criminally prosecutable, we want to go after and be sure that we pursue justice for them.”

WEAR News asked Gillespie if there is a state victim’s fund that could be used. He said based on his understanding, it is limited in some respects.

Sentencing for LaCoste is set for Dec. 11.