{"id":107929,"date":"2026-01-01T23:27:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-01T23:27:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/107929\/"},"modified":"2026-01-01T23:27:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-01T23:27:12","slug":"vile-secret-of-dallas-husband-and-wife-team-who-tried-to-become-the-new-chip-and-joanna-gaines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/107929\/","title":{"rendered":"Vile secret of Dallas husband and wife team who tried to become the new Chip and Joanna Gaines"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Texas<\/a> couple who sold themselves as Chip and Joanna Gaines<\/a>-style homebuilders\u00a0secretly scammed customers out of millions by taking payments to build dream homes they never planned to finish.<\/p>\n

Christopher and Raquelle Judge, of Fort Worth, marketed themselves as a custom homebuilding and remodeling business \u2013 only to pocket their clients’ cash instead.<\/p>\n

Christopher, 35, pled guilty to a wire fraud conspiracy charge on Tuesday after Raquelle, 36, did so earlier this month, admitting they defrauded more than 40 customers of approximately $4.8million.<\/p>\n

Instead of using the money to complete the promised construction projects, the Judges diverted the funds for personal use between August 2020 and January 2023.<\/p>\n

That included $96,000 on building their luxurious $613,000 home, $65,000 on legal fees, $38,000 on rent and mortgage payments, and $10,000 on unspecified plastic surgery procedures, according to prosecutors.<\/p>\n

The couple also used the fraudulent funds to pay for Amazon purchases, personal credit cards, tuition fees and ‘luxury items.’<\/p>\n

Christopher faces up to 20 years in federal prison, while Raquelle can only receive a maximum sentence of five years.<\/p>\n

\"Christopher <\/p>\n

Christopher and Raquelle Judge pled guilty to wire fraud conspiracy. They marketed themselves as a custom architecture business, only to pocket their clients’ money<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

The Judges spent $96,000 on building their home, $65,000 on civil legal fees, $38,000 on rent and mortgage payments, and $10,000 on plastic surgery<\/p>\n

An indictment filed September 3 in the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas detailed how the married couple stole millions of dollars.<\/p>\n

The Judges offered architecture, construction, and interior design services online under a company called Judge DFW.<\/p>\n

Christopher falsely advertised his services as an architect on social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.<\/p>\n

Once a potential customer got in touch to build or remodel a home, Christopher would submit a below\u2013market bid for the project and promise that it would be completed within four to six months.<\/p>\n

After securing a client, the Judges asked for money to be transferred to a business bank account \u2013 only for the husband and wife to move the funds into other accounts for their own expenses.<\/p>\n

The Judges never intended to finish the custom home projects, per the indictment.<\/p>\n

Instead, they would do ‘partial work’ to induce the victims to keep making payments, effectively funding their luxury lifestyle.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"In <\/p>\n

In total, prosecutors said that the married couple\u00a0received $4.8million from customers for the unfinished projects<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

The Judges would use their customers’ money for their own expenses, according to prosecutors. Their $613,000 home in Texas is pictured\u00a0<\/p>\n

The couple would hire subcontractors of a ‘substandard’ quality to perform minimal reforms and then not pay them, per the indictment.<\/p>\n

If customers raised concerns about the delays in construction, the Judges would ‘make excuses’ to ensure that the money kept coming in.<\/p>\n

The end result was that customers were often left without a completed residence to live in.<\/p>\n

At least 24 construction projects, none of which were ever completed, were used to carry out the scam.<\/p>\n

One use of the funds was for their own home, per the indictment. The judges live in a $613,000 home in Keller, Texas.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Customers were assured ‘that problems and delays in construction would be corrected and that the project would be completed on time if [they] continued to make their installment payments,’ according to prosecutors.<\/p>\n

The indictment showed how the husband and wife received thousands of dollars \u2013 adding up to millions \u2013 from unsuspecting homeowners in Texas.<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

The Texas husband and wife scammed homeowners in their state of thousands of dollars, as the indictment showed<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

The Judges billed themselves as Chip and Joanna Gaines-style homebuilders\u00a0to more than 40 unsuspecting homeowners<\/p>\n

One individual in Justin made 13 payments for a total of $263,240, federal prosecutors showed.<\/p>\n

Another person paid the Judges #436,310 over 12 installments for a project in Decatur.<\/p>\n

As the Judges ran their custom home projects scam, questions were raised about Christopher’s purported background as an architect, realtor and builder.<\/p>\n

In May 2022, the Texas Board of Architecture got involved by issuing him a ‘formal warning’ for misrepresenting his profession.<\/p>\n

However, that did little to deter the Judges \u2013 who continued falsely advertising and enriching themselves until January 2023.<\/p>\n

The investigation into the couple’s fraudulent business was conducted by the FBI’s Fort Worth Resident Agency and the Euless Police Department, with assistance from the US Secret Service.<\/p>\n

Christopher pled guilty on Tuesday, while Raquelle pled guilty on December 17.<\/p>\n

The husband will be sentenced on May 12 and the wife will be sentenced on April 14.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Texas couple who sold themselves as Chip and Joanna Gaines-style homebuilders\u00a0secretly scammed customers out of millions by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":107930,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[5559,738,102,104,103,5893,9828,48595,223,6622],"class_list":["post-107929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-amazon","tag-dailymail","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-facebook","tag-instagram","tag-joanna-gaines","tag-news","tag-tiktok"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107929\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}