Westmoreland County contractor facing several fraud charges following string of pool projects
HEMPFIELD TOWNSHIP, Pa. —
A Westmoreland County contractor faces several fraud charges after allegedly stealing thousands of dollars that were meant to fix up swimming pools.
“We’re home, and we have no pool to go to,” said James Moran, of Hempfield Township. “It’s very upsetting to me to think someone out there knows who I am as a person, knows what we have here for these children, and lets you down that hard.”
Moran is one of multiple people in Westmoreland County who had Nolan Nichols working on their pools for years.
“He came and accommodated our needs,” Moran said. “We had a fence issue, the pool lining, and some other materials we needed for the pool. He wanted to do a package deal for us. We paid around $5,000.
However, 2026 has been different.
According to Pennsylvania State Police, Nichols has yet to fix the Moran property and others in Hempfield Township.
“It needs to stop,” Moran said. “We canceled our vacation for this year thinking that we needed to be home for the process of this. We have young ones. This is the source of entertainment in the backyard all summer long. We’ve had nothing for them.”
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Another Hempfield Township family has been left with this in their backyard since April.
Investigators believe Nichols received more than $30,000 from this family. They told Pittsburgh’s Action News 4 that between Nichols, repairs and legal fees has cost close to $100,000.
“It does make things very difficult for the homeowner,” said Bill Biedinger, owner of Greensburg Pool and Supply Company. “It makes it difficult for them to find someone qualified to come in.”
Biedinger will be the one to clean up the $100,000 mess.
“In this case, it involves a tile company and other elements that we’re not doing,” he said. “They basically just tear everything out. They do the easy part first and then want more money. A lot of pool companies don’t want the liability to come in and do the work after it was started.”
Biedinger said he has fixed other pools left in bad shape allegedly by Nichols in the past.
Since 2003, the 45-year-old contractor has had 20 separate criminal dockets. Many of them include fraud charges.
Biedinger told families to do their research before hiring.
“People will just ignore that and want a very low price in a very short amount of time,” he said. “How long have they been around? Do they have lettered vehicles? Do they have a separate business location? If they have references, Google their name. Google their company. That will tell you a lot right there.”
Nichols currently faces counts including home improvement fraud and theft by deception.
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