An unlicensed Central Florida contractor who already owes a dozen U.S. Virgin Islands families more than $650,000 has avoided prison time yet again, this time after entering new pleas in a felony and a misdemeanor case tied to unfinished home projects around Orlando and Deltona. Anson Gallaway received one year of probation in one case and ten years of probation in another, with a judge ordering him to repay victims rather than serve time behind bars.
Gallaway pleaded no contest to a second-degree grand theft felony involving $53,000 taken from an Orlando couple for a home he was supposed to build under Cat 5 Prefab Homes, and never finished, according to WESH. He also pleaded no contest to taking $44,500 from Juliette Harrell for an accessory dwelling unit he never started, and pleaded guilty to accepting $45,000 from a Deltona family in Volusia County for an unfinished home addition. Judge Michael Kraynick, who presided over the plea hearing in the Ninth Judicial Circuit, ordered Gallaway to pay restitution at a rate of not less than $500 per month and to stay gainfully employed so he can keep making those payments.
Grand Theft Charges Carried Up to 15 Years
Kraynick noted that Gallaway had been charged with one count of second-degree grand theft involving $20,000 or more, a charge that under Florida Statute § 812.014(2)(b) is a second-degree felony carrying maximum statutory penalties of up to 15 years in state prison and a $10,000 fine, according to Online Sunshine. Gallaway could have received that maximum sentence in the grand theft case alone, per the WESH report, but instead was ordered to pay nearly $100,000 combined to the two families and avoided a jail term entirely. He also separately accepted $45,000 from an Orlando homeowner for pool work that was never completed and, according to the same report, has not repaid that money.
Gallaway also took a $45,000 deposit from an Orlando homeowner for pool work that went incomplete, and the station's report notes he has yet to repay that debt. He may not work in the contracting business going forward, and he cannot appeal his convictions, though he has 30 days to appeal the sentences themselves. State corporate records show Gallaway registered Cat5 Home Center, LLC as an Orlando-based limited liability company on February 15, 2023, according to Sunbiz.org, the entity he used to solicit Central Florida homeowners for prefabricated homes and additions.
A Prior Conviction and a Pattern Across Counties
By June 2026, investigative reporting had already confirmed that Gallaway was convicted of unlicensed contracting in Volusia County before his plea deal resolved the remaining charges in his two Orange County cases. Under Florida Statute § 489.127, contracting without a license is a first-degree misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail for a first offense, but escalates to a third-degree felony punishable by up to five years for repeat offenses, according to the Florida Senate. The Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation separately assessed a $6,000 fine against Gallaway, a civil penalty the agency is empowered to levy under Florida Statutes §§ 489.13 and 455.228, which allow fines up to $10,000 per violation against unlicensed contractors.
Florida law also offers a measure of protection to homeowners caught up in these deals: contracts entered into by unlicensed contractors are legally unenforceable, meaning Gallaway has no legal standing to sue victims for payment or place liens on their properties under Florida Statute § 489.128. Juliette Harrell, one of the victims in the Orange County cases and now suing Gallaway, told WESH she hoped his convictions would remain on record so “he could not do this to someone else.”
Virgin Islands Debt Still Looms Over Gallaway
Gallaway's Florida cases arrive on top of a far larger reckoning in the U.S. Virgin Islands, where a Superior Court judge sentenced him in July 2025 to five years of probation after he defrauded a dozen families out of more than $650,000 for prefabricated homes that were never built or finished. According to the Virgin Islands Department of Justice, Judge Ernest E. Morris handed down that sentence after Gallaway was convicted of obtaining money by false pretense for work done under GHL Home Innovations LLC between February 2020 and December 2021. Gallaway paid $220,000 before sentencing but still owes $439,911.51 in restitution, required in minimum monthly payments of $4,000 distributed quarterly to those families, per WTJX Newsfeed.
Timothy Perry, chief of the criminal division of the Virgin Islands Department of Justice, said his office will request certified copies of Gallaway's new Florida convictions to determine whether they violate the terms of his suspended Caribbean sentence. If they do, Perry said, the department will file a motion to revoke that suspended sentence, which could put Gallaway back in front of a judge facing the five years in prison he avoided last year. That original prison term was suspended under Title 5, Section 3711(c) of the Virgin Islands Code after Gallaway's attorney cited his acceptance of responsibility, restitution efforts, and a medical condition requiring frequent hospitalizations, per the same WTJX account.
Virgin Islands Police Department detectives had already flagged trouble with Gallaway's paperwork years earlier, arresting him in July 2022 after an Economic Crimes Unit investigation found that his business license for GHL Home Innovations LLC did not authorize him to sell or construct prefabricated homes at all. He now faces two sets of monthly restitution obligations at once — at least $4,000 a month to Virgin Islands victims and at least $500 a month to his Florida victims — a financial load that will determine whether he keeps making payments or ends up back in a courtroom facing the prison time he has twice avoided.
