CLEARFIELD – A DuBois contractor pleaded guilty to felony home improvement fraud and theft during sentencing court Monday.
Police say Joseph George Sabatose, 58, was hired for various jobs at a Clearfield residence in July of 2022 and failed to not only complete the projects, but damaged a bathroom and used a credit card for his own expenses.
Sabatose was sentenced by Judge Paul E. Cherry to serve 12 months to five years in state prison. He must also pay $6,461.68 in restitution to the victims.
In addition, his probation on a previous charge of felony criminal trespass from 2016 and theft by deception case from 2022, was revoked and he was given a one to five-year term in prison, giving him a total sentence of two to 10 years.
According to the affidavit in the recent case, Sabatose started with being assigned the simple task of replacing a door and window. As time passed, the couple added other projects and paid him.
At one point, he began tearing apart a bathroom before completing the first projects. The victims reported that even the work he finished would need to be re-done.
Sabatose asked for money for additional materials including a window that he never purchased and for labor for which he was already paid.
The victim’s brother, who was helping with labor to cut costs, said Sabatose tried to buy additional items for himself when they were picking up material using the couple’s credit card.
Sabatose arranged for the receipts from his purchases to be sent to his e-mail address instead of theirs.
The brother also stated that Sabatose was falsely reporting his work hours.
Several witnesses confirmed Sabatose was not authorized to start work in the bathroom, which he damaged.
This was not his first home improvement fraud case.
In March of 2022, Sabatose pleaded guilty to the charge for not completing a job to replace windows at a Sandy Township home. For this, he was given three years probation.
At that time, he also pleaded guilty to theft by deception for not finishing work at a Bloom Township home in 2020 and received a sentence of 30 days to one year in jail with three years probation.
It was noted in court that he owes over $9,000 from the previous cases and has not made a payment since July of 2022.
