A young Texas couple posing as contractors conned dozens of clients out of $4.8 million in a scheme that left families with unfinished homes not safe to inhabit, all while the pair blew the cash on personal expenses, including plastic surgery.
Christopher Judge and his wife, Raquelle Judge, lied to about 40 clients between August 2020 and January 2023 as they tried to emulate viral house-flipping stars and lured customers through social media, but instead proved to be a couple of con artists.
The duo falsely claimed Christopher was a licensed architect through their company, Judge DFW LLC, and left unstable, half-finished homes in their wake, according to a news release from the US Attorney’s Office in Northern Texas.
Lane Simmons and his wife were two of their many victims. His wife said the Judges were recommended on a social media group for local moms and they were won over by the Judges’ eager presentation.
“They came out to our house and really pitched themselves as like this Chip and Joanna Gaines type of vibe,” Simmons told WFAA.
Instead of the “Fixer Upper” duo, they were treated to a pair of glorified handymen for their home remodeling project.
“My house — everything that they did is wrong. Within weeks, my tile is cracking. My floors are cracking. My kitchen floor is sinking in. The exterior trim looks like a child did it. All the framing, we had to re-tear out and rebuild. My staircase had to be re-torn out and rebuilt. It was only held up by one piece of board on the inside. Just code violation after code violation,” Simmons told the outlet.
He said the Judges’ bid to remodel the home was significantly lower than other companies they reviewed — a glaring red flag in hindsight.
In each of the 24 construction projects included in the fraud case, the victims reported receiving “below-market bids” from the Judges that ultimately won them over with the excuse that the couple was offering a cheaper price tag as they were just starting their business.
Simmons said he paid the Judges upwards of $200,000 and had to shell out even more on his own to fix their mistakes. He said that the home, as it was when the Judges claimed they finished, wasn’t remotely safe to live in.
“We had a family friend that’s also a contractor come over and look over everything, and he’s like, man, there’s a lot of this is unsafe,” he said. “This is like the worst job I’ve probably ever seen.”
Another victim hired the fake fixer-uppers to build her dream home from the ground up. When she began noticing building delays, overcharges and faulty construction, she pressed the Judges for answers. Christopher disappeared.
“He just walked off,” Kristin Newman told WFAA. “He just stopped talking to us. Never came back.”
She told NBC-DFW she gave the Judges $200,000 and then had to fork over another $200,000 to new contractors to finish where they left off.
“This isn’t just a bad business decision or I don’t know how to build houses,” Newman said. “This was — he chose to lie. He chose to steal. And Raquelle chose to lie and to steal, along with him.”
A third victim said he was forced to declare bankruptcy after he was defrauded by the couple and left with an unfinished build, the NBC affiliate station reported.
The Judges spent about $865,000 of funds secured through their company on personal expenses, including $10,000 on plastic surgery and $82,000 on Amazon purchases, according to federal records.
Simmons filed a civil lawsuit against the Judges, just like many of the couple’s prior clients. He went the extra mile and hired an inspector, who discovered that Christopher was only pretending to be an architect.
Other victims reported similar patterns in the Judges’ lackluster bedside manner, including unfulfilled supply orders they already paid for and outright abandonment in the middle of a project.
Raquelle pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud on Dec. 17. She faces a maximum of five years in federal prison and will be sentenced on April 14.
Christopher pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud on Dec. 30. He faces up to 20 years in prison and will be sentenced on May 12.
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