By Christine Sexton, The Florida Phoenix<\/p>\n
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier was in Sarasota Friday to announce his office has filed a\u00a0lawsuit\u00a0against a construction company and its executives for allegedly scamming at least 80 residents out of at least $1 million in insurance payments over four years.<\/p>\n
Uthmeier filed the suit in the\u00a020th Judicial Circuit in Lee County. Named defendants are Evolve Construction and Evolve Construction & Restoration Inc. \u2014 which operate as Evolve Enterprise \u2014 and six of its executive principals.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The AG\u2019s office alleges the defendants\u00a0used predatory contracts that left residents without protection and operated without home solicitation permits, moves Uthmeier claims violate Florida\u2019s\u00a0Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act, which his office enforces.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been able to identify over a million dollars at this point from 80 different complainants, and that number is only going to grow,\u201d Uthmeier said during the press conference.<\/p>\n
The Florida Phoenix called Evolve Construction at the Sherman Oaks, Calif., headquarters advertised on its website but no one answered. Phone calls to Evolve Construction & Restoration offices in\u00a0 Naples, Sarasota, Orlando, and Port Charlotte offices advertised on the website also went unanswered.<\/p>\n
Following Hurricanes Ian and Milton, Uthmeier said, individuals from the companies would go into storm-ravaged neighborhoods, knocking door to door, promising to repair roofs and search for mold.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey stole millions of dollars of insurance money that these residents received that was supposed to go towards home repairs but, the kicker, they didn\u2019t do the repairs. On many cases, they did not even begin the repairs. But in all of these cases, they certainly did not finish them, taking the money, running, leaving these poor residents, these victims, with damaged buildings and homes and, in many cases, liens on the property \u2014 that\u2019s unacceptable,\u201d Uthmeier said.<\/p>\n
The AG said he hopes other people who have been scammed contact his office \u201cso\u00a0that\u00a0we\u00a0can\u00a0beef\u00a0up\u00a0our\u00a0suit\u00a0even\u00a0further.\u00a0Take\u00a0these\u00a0guys\u00a0to\u00a0the\u00a0cleaners,\u00a0make\u00a0sure\u00a0that\u00a0they\u00a0are\u00a0held\u00a0fully\u00a0accountable,\u00a0and\u00a0get\u00a0your\u00a0money\u00a0back\u00a0to\u00a0you\u00a0so\u00a0that\u00a0you\u00a0can\u00a0be\u00a0made\u00a0whole.\u201d<\/p>\n
Uthmeier was named Florida\u2019s top law enforcement official by Gov. Ron DeSantis after he tapped former Attorney General Ashley Moody to fill the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Marco Rubio when he became Secretary of State.<\/p>\n
To keep the position, Uthmeier must be approved by Florida voters in November. He faces Democratic challenger Jos\u00e9 Javier Rodriguez.<\/p>\n
He used the press conference as an opportunity to praise his former boss.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u00a0think\u00a0Gov.\u00a0DeSantis\u00a0has\u00a0has\u00a0really\u00a0written\u00a0a\u00a0master\u00a0class\u00a0for\u00a0all\u00a0leaders\u00a0when\u00a0it\u00a0comes\u00a0to\u00a0how\u00a0to\u00a0handle thees\u00a0these\u00a0disasters [hurricanes], Uthmeier said.<\/p>\n
He praised Sarasota County Sheriff Kurt Hoffman and other law enforcement, noting, \u201cThey do\u00a0Lord\u2019s\u00a0work.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Christine Sexton, The Florida Phoenix Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier was in Sarasota Friday to announce his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":412785,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[232,234,233],"class_list":["post-412784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee-headlines","tag-tallahassee-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=412784"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412784\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/412785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=412784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=412784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=412784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}