{"id":108112,"date":"2026-01-02T03:10:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T03:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/108112\/"},"modified":"2026-01-02T03:10:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T03:10:09","slug":"north-texas-couple-faces-prison-for-5-million-fraud-impacting-40-homeowners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/108112\/","title":{"rendered":"North Texas couple faces prison for $5 million fraud impacting 40 homeowners"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\" article <\/p>\n

WISE COUNTY, Texas – A Texas husband pleaded guilty to wire fraud on Tuesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Earlier in December, the man and his wife used social media to seek clients and would quote cheaper costs than competition to secure contracts.<\/p>\n

\"\" The false architect <\/p>\n

What we know:<\/p>\n

Chris Judge describes himself as an architect. Federal investigators, however, say he\u2019s not an architect, and while claiming to be one, he and his wife scammed more than 40 North Texas families of nearly $5 million related to incomplete custom-home building and remodeling projects.<\/p>\n

In 2022, the Texas Board of Architectural Examiners warned Judge that he was violating the administrative code by referring to himself as an architect. Judge, however, was already well into his scheme, convincing dozens of families to pay him for home construction projects.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

What they’re saying:<\/p>\n

“Well, it\u2019s a cautionary tale for anyone contemplating having construction work done at their home,” said Richard Roper, a former U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas not connected to this case.<\/p>\n

“The husband touted himself that he was an architect, which was absolutely not true and, in fact, he was warned by the State of Texas.”<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

\u00a0Victims questioned delays and incomplete projects, according to a federal complaint.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“You just need to be careful about who you give the money to,” said Roper. “If it\u2019s too good to be true, it\u2019s probably not true.”<\/p>\n

Cost of the scam <\/p>\n

Dig deeper:<\/p>\n

\u00a0In the Wise County town of Runaway Bay, Judge received a total of 424 citations for code enforcement violations. Eventually, the FBI got involved.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

“You gotta wonder what happened to the money,” said ___<\/p>\n

The feds say Judge and his wife spent some of the money on living expenses, mortgage payments, even plastic surgery.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Facing federal prison <\/p>\n

What’s next:<\/p>\n

FOX 4 contacted Judge\u2019s listed cell number on Thursday evening,\u00a0but Judge has not returned our call.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sentencing is scheduled for spring. Chris Judge is facing up to 20 years in federal prison. His wife, Raquelle Judge, is facing up to five years.<\/p>\n

The Source: Information in this article was provided by FOX 4’s David Sentendrey.<\/p>\n

Wise County<\/a>Crime and Public Safety<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"article WISE COUNTY, Texas – A Texas husband pleaded guilty to wire fraud on Tuesday.\u00a0 Earlier in December,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":108113,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1046,223,27,29,28,216,393,13468],"class_list":{"0":"post-108112","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-texas","8":"tag-crime-publicsafety","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-texas","11":"tag-texas-headlines","12":"tag-texas-news","13":"tag-tx","14":"tag-us","15":"tag-wise-county"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108112","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=108112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108112\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}