SAN ANTONIO – A convicted thief who has spent parts of the past 12 years in jail is accused of accepting money for deck repairs before abandoning the project, leaving a San Antonio couple with a backyard safety hazard.
It is a pattern KSAT Investigates has documented for nearly a decade.
Jessie Pyles, a disabled Army veteran, and his wife Caroline Born hired Carlos Elizondo in February to repair and refinish their back patio. The $1,800 project called for Elizondo to flip over and refinish usable boards, replace damaged ones and build new steps.
Instead, Pyles said, Elizondo collected payments before disappearing from the job at their North Side home this spring.
“There’s screws sticking up,” Pyles said, describing the unfinished deck and the hazards left behind.
The couple said they were unaware of Elizondo’s criminal history when they hired him.
Pyles said he later searched the contractor’s name online and discovered KSAT’s previous investigations into complaints from homeowners across the San Antonio area.
“I typed in his name and it autofilled to San Antonio, and it brought up all your news reports,” Pyles said.
The unfinished deck is the latest allegation involving Elizondo, whose history with customers and the criminal justice system has been the subject of repeated KSAT Investigates reports.
A pattern KSAT has reported for years
In February, KSAT Investigates reported that homeowners in Converse and Canyon Lake had accused Elizondo of accepting payments for deck and awning projects before leaving the work incomplete.
In one case, Shantel Brown said she paid Elizondo more than $5,000 toward a deck and patio-covering project at her Converse home in 2024. She said the work remained far from finished months later and that she ultimately hired another contractor to correct the work that had been done.
Brown told KSAT that Elizondo returned only $600 of the $5,200 she said he owed her.
In Canyon Lake, Diane Michelle Brosnan said she paid Elizondo $3,400 toward a $6,600 project involving decks and a metal covering. She said he tore down her existing back deck, completed only a fraction of the work and eventually abandoned the project.
Diane Michelle Brosnan shows a loose post installed by Carlos Elizondo outside her Canyon Lake home. (KSAT)
Mason Weems, another Canyon Lake homeowner, told KSAT he paid Elizondo $2,500 toward a $5,000 project to extend his back deck and build a metal roof. Weems said the contractor supplied about $270 worth of lumber and labor before disappearing.
Those complaints followed years of similar allegations reported by KSAT.
In 2020, KSAT Investigates reported that Elizondo had been accused of abandoning fencing, lawn care and deck projects after collecting payments from customers. Some customers said they initially knew him as Rene Elizondo or C. Rene Elizondo, rather than Carlos Elizondo.
Carlos Elizondo. (Bexar County Sheriff’s Office)
In 2021, KSAT reported that Elizondo had been arrested in connection with two additional felony theft cases. One involved allegations that he accepted payments for deck work he did not complete.
And in 2023, KSAT reported that Elizondo had pleaded no contest to four felony theft cases. The report also detailed how customers had struggled to recover money after projects were left unfinished.
The complaints have come from homeowners in multiple jurisdictions, including Bexar, Comal and Hays counties.
A convicted felon on probation
Court records and previous KSAT Investigates reporting show Elizondo has been arrested on 15 theft charges since late 2014.
In 2017, a Bexar County judge sentenced Elizondo to four years in jail after prosecutors sought to revoke his probation on previous theft convictions.
KSAT reported at the time that Elizondo had repeatedly posed as a law enforcement officer while soliciting customers for lawn care and fencing work.
He was released from custody in January 2019 after serving less than a third of that sentence, according to KSAT’s reporting at the time.
Elizondo later returned to contracting, despite statements made by his attorneys during court proceedings that he would no longer work in that career field.
Crystal and Damian McMillan say Elizondo abandoned his work on a deck for their backyard after installing four wooden posts. (KSAT)
During a 2017 sentencing hearing, his attorney told the judge that Elizondo’s contracting days were over. Another attorney made a similar representation during a later court proceeding.
Elizondo’s Hays County felony probation was transferred in 2023 to Bexar County, where he is also on felony probation. (KSAT)
Elizondo is on felony probation in Bexar County through the summer of 2028. His community supervision in a separate felony case in Hays County was transferred to Bexar County in July 2023, according to records reviewed by KSAT.
The Hays County documents refer to the punishment as “zero tolerance supervision.”
Questioned on camera
KSAT Investigates found Elizondo on Sept. 15 working at a neighbor’s property about 100 feet from Pyles’ home.
Investigative reporter Dillon Collier questioned Elizondo about the complaints from homeowners who say they paid him for work that was never completed.
“Carlos, you’ve got a trail of victims from Converse to Canyon Lake. You’re still doing it. What’s up?” Investigative reporter Dillon Collier asked.
After seeing the KSAT camera, Elizondo began packing up his equipment and quickly drove away from the neighborhood with his truck’s tailgate still down.
Carlos Elizondo dumps out water at a job site last month. (KSAT)
The encounter came as Pyles is left dealing with the unfinished work at his home, including exposed screws, missing boards and steps that were removed.
San Antonio police continue to investigate the latest theft allegation. Police officials confirmed to KSAT this month that the case has been forwarded to the Bexar County District Attorney’s Office for review.
The latest allegation has not been adjudicated in court and Elizondo has not been criminally charged in connection to it.
For Pyles, the experience is a costly reminder of what he wishes he had known before hiring Elizondo: a Google search would have revealed the history documented in years of KSAT Investigates reporting.
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