A Texas homebuilder is in hot water after a Grand Jury laid down multiple felony charges, the state Attorney General's office reported. Norman Ashby, the man behind Ashby Signature Homes, LLC, was handcuffed for allegedly fleecing homebuyers out of millions and using their cash for his piggy bank instead of building their dream houses.
46-year-old Ashby, of Georgetown, was slapped with serious accusations including Misapplication of Fiduciary Property, Theft of Services, and Tampering with a Witness. It's claimed he conjured up a multi-million dollar scam, convincing clients to pay nearly full price upfront with hard cash, sometimes over one million dollars, according to the statement from the Attorney General's Office.
Attorney General Ken Paxton Secures Indictment Against Williamson County Homebuilder Norman Ashby on Multiple Charges: https://t.co/ZjKmhwrNFy
— Texas Attorney General (@TXAG) February 23, 2024
Lamentably, instead of depositing this booty into a trust account — as the law demands, Ashby is accused of mixing the funds up with his own moola. As the indictment alleges, Ashby's personal expenses and unrelated projects were fattened by the funds that should've been cementing foundations and framing homes. In total, the grand scale of the fraud is believed to be north of $10 million.
The probe into Ashby's affairs was spearheaded by the Criminal Investigations Division of the Texas Office of the Attorney General (OAG), the real McCoy when it comes to cracking down on financial mischief. And it'll be the OAG's own Criminal Prosecutions Division that'll take this case to court, with the investigation still burrowing deeper into what went down. Stay tuned as this house of cards is still far from collapse.
