'Took the money and ran': Several businesses claim they were left unpaid by contractor [Appeal-Democrat, Marysville, Calif.]

Jan. 20—After a social media post was made by the screen-printing business Coker Precision Graphics voicing the owner's alleged experiences of unpaid bills with a particular customer, several businesses and community members also voiced similar claims and experiences with the same man.

In a social media post on Dec. 27, 2022, the owners of Coker Precision Graphics claimed that Carlos Ortiz, owner of CTO Excavation LLC and Soil Investments, had not paid for a "large order of signs" he placed in early November.

The owners claimed that the business had not been paid for the design and creation of these signs and that Ortiz had made multiple excuses as to why the bill was unpaid.

"I have kindly explained to Carlos that we are a small locally owned business and that by not paying his bill it is taking money away from my family but from what I have learned over the last couple of weeks taking money from families and children seems to be his thing. I am posting this in hopes that I can get the word out to more people so that no one in the Yuba-Sutter Area or surrounding communities will ever do any business with Carlos Ortiz, CTO Excavation LLC or Soil Investments," the social media post said.

The Appeal reached out to Coker Precision Graphics to confirm these allegations, but did not receive a response by press time on Friday.

When reaching out to Ortiz to confirm the claims made on social media and by his former business partners, the Appeal was threatened with legal action should a story be published. Following this threat, Ortiz later told the Appeal that while he does owe money to Coker Precision Graphics and others, he fully intends to pay them back.

"Everything according to Coker Graphics or according to people that say I owe money in this county, some of them I do and some of them I don't, and I fully plan on paying everybody back. However, I have to be successful in order to pay everybody back. Continuing to bash me, put my name in the paper or all over Facebook isn't doing anything but making sure you're never going to be paid back, so it won't be successful to pay you guys back," Ortiz said in a phone call. "Everybody goes through hard times. I know that I have done some things that have been self induced, but nothing has led to me being publicly bashed the way I've been bashed."

Ortiz said that any questions others may have should be directed to either himself or his attorneys.

Paul Hillegas, an investigator with the Yolo County Workers' Compensation Insurance Fraud department, confirmed that Ortiz is facing five charges related to insurance fraud, but was unable to provide further comment due to it being an active case.

"As for the pled charges that are going against me in Sutter County, everything is and will be handled outside of court in the next 60 days if not sooner. Everything will be handled accordingly and there will be no jail time served," Ortiz said.

Several responses claiming to be from business owners who also provided services to Ortiz alleged that he had also left them with unpaid bills. Others claiming to be from former clients of Ortiz's contracting businesses alleged that he had left jobs incomplete after receiving payment. However, the Appeal was unable to confirm some of these allegations.

One comment alleged that Ortiz had not paid for products from Sutter Embroidery Co. Owner Alise Kelly confirmed that in 2021, three different checks from Ortiz allegedly failed to clear. After months of Ortiz failing to pay the amount owed, Kelly said that this led her to file a small claims suit against him for the amount of $3,500.

Some of Ortiz's former partners and clients have come forward believing that allegedly unpaid bills and unfinished jobs are part of a larger pattern of fraud.

Brandon Brown of Dependable Handyman Service in Yuba City claimed that Ortiz owed him $117,000 after entering a business partnership with him in December 2020 to start another contracting service, Heavy Handyman.

Brown claimed that while trying to purchase equipment for this business, Ortiz sent checks for payment and canceled them before they could be processed. He also alleged that Ortiz would create fake wire transfer numbers while claiming to initiate payments.

"He would write checks and stop payment on them. He would come up with fake wire transfer numbers and claim that the wire transfer was on its way to the heavy equipment company and also to us," Brown said. "We found out that you cannot do business with Carlos because Carlos lies as a second language."

After Ortiz allegedly paid Brown with a deficient check from his mother to pay for another piece of equipment, Brown involved Ortiz's parents in a meeting to discuss the thousands of dollars that Ortiz allegedly owed.

Brown said that after establishing that Ortiz allegedly owed $117,000, the two settled for seizing some of Ortiz's property rather than paying the full amount owed.

"We brought him in and his parents in for a couple of hours over two different visits, and the goal was 'How are we going to settle this debt?' ... We did in fact settle, but it was very deficient. What we did was take what little property he did actually own, which only amounted to a value of about $40,000," he said.

When asked for comment, Ortiz said that no money has been owed to Brown since the end of their business partnership, which he said ended due to a "conflict of interest." He also confirmed that repayments had been made to Brown in the form of his personal property and cash, which allegedly included a Dodge pickup truck and heavy equipment.

Brown also alleged that while performing landscaping or contracting services for clients, Ortiz would damage a client's property and take their payment with no intention of finishing an assignment.

A former client of Ortiz reached out to the Appeal to claim that Ortiz had left a demolition job on their property incomplete, which allegedly left large debris throughout the yard and destroyed the client's irrigation system.

The former client said that they had contracted Ortiz in August 2022 for a $10,000 job.

"I'd say it was about 75% done, but he essentially, in the middle of the job, took the money and ran," the former client said.

They said after hearing about the felony charges against Ortiz, the former client contacted Hillegas to provide more information about his alleged patterns of fraud. Since then, the former client claims that Ortiz has threatened them with legal action.

Ortiz also reportedly owes over $16,500 to the Yuba-Sutter Fairgrounds after purchasing six lots of livestock during the 2021 Yuba-Sutter Fair. CEO Dave Dillabo provided a bill addressed to Ortiz's former company Western Land Management, which Ortiz claimed later went bankrupt.

During the fair, Ortiz claimed that he was part of a buyers group which purchased five market hogs and a lamb from kids involved in 4-H and FFA programs. Those involved in the group purchased different percentages of each animal which accrued separate, individual prices for each buyer.

Ortiz purchased 50%, 33% and 100% ownerships of the disputed animals, totaling to $16,582. The bill was originally due in August 2021 and multiple attempts to collect were made, Dillabo claimed.

The kids selling their livestock were later paid out of pocket by the Fairgrounds when Ortiz allegedly failed to make a payment, which took nearly a third of the Fair's auction proceeds, he said.

"These are young kids who invest a lot of time, money and responsibility in raising these animals and trying to sell them. There are months of preparations to be made. Carlos isn't taking $16,000 from the Fair. He purchased them from kids," Dillabo said.

Ortiz confirmed the unpaid bill with the Appeal, but claimed that the $16,500 bill was the total cost between Ortiz and the buyers group, rather than just Ortiz's share.

Ortiz claimed that those involved in the buyers group failed to pay their dividends on these animals, leaving him with the brunt of this bill.

Dillabo said that Ortiz was billed for the ownership percentages that he purchased, which are solely his responsibility.

When asked who was involved in this buyers group, Ortiz declined to comment. Ortiz claimed that he has since made a small payment toward the bill, but Dillabo asserted that he has not made any effort to pay his debts.

"By the second quarter of this year, I plan on paying that balance in full and moving forward with my life," Ortiz said. "Just like everybody else, these people deserve happiness. I'm not a bad person. I have made some wrong doings in my life, and I truly, wholeheartedly know that. All I want out of this community and all I want out of everybody who surrounds it and thinks I owe them money is for them to go away. If I was that much of a fraud, that much of a crook, I would be behind bars, but I'm not. Everything that I have done, I have paid the consequence for and I have made dividends and paid them back."

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