Contractor promised elderly residents remodeling projects. He took them for $1.4M

Dec. 19--FORT WORTH -- A Euless contractor was sentenced on Wednesday to 15 years in prison for bilking Tarrant County homeowners, many of them elderly couples, out of $1.4 million.

In one instance, an elderly Tarrant County resident hired the contractor to make handicapped modifications to a downstairs room in her home for her ailing husband who could not longer climb stairs, but the work was never completed and her husband died.

That house also remains in despair from shoddy work, a prosecutor said.

Randy Wayne Sprinkle, 54, was sentenced to 15 years after pleading guilty to theft of property of more than $300,000 and misapplication of fiduciary funds. He also was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 10 years' probation for the misapplication charge. Those sentences will be served concurrently.

State District Judge George Gallagher ordered Sprinkle to pay $854,000 in restitution for the work he never finished or abandoned.

Tarrant County Assistant District Attorney Lori Varnell compared Sprinkle to notorious convicted financier Bernie Madoff.

"Mr. Sprinkle used a Ponzi business model, robbing Peter to pay Paul," said Varnell, who is chief of Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney's Office elder financial fraud team. "Ponzi used stamps to commit fraud, Bernie Madoff used the stock market, and Mr. Sprinkle used remodeling and construction as his scam."

During punishment testimony, Sprinkle admitted he took hundreds of thousands of dollars from elderly customers who contracted him for remodeling projects. Some of the victims were unable to testify because they had died.

Varnell told the judge Sprinkle was a threat to homeowners and senior residents in Tarrant County because even after he was arrested, he continued to scam residents.

As he delivered the sentence, the judge told Sprinkle that he would be there to supervise him personally when he gets out of prison to ensure the Euless contractor would not target elderly homeowners again.

Prosecutors said there were more than a dozen victims and Sprinkle had been doing the shoddy work for the last six years in cities that included Fort Worth, Weatherford, Roanoke, Hurst and North Richland Hills.

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