Minnesota Pool Contractor Charged in Federal Indictment for Defrauding Homeowners

MINNEAPOLIS – A Scott County man has been indicted on four counts of wire fraud for defrauding multiple homeowners in a swimming pool contracting scheme, announced U.S. Attorney Andrew M. Luger.

According to court documents, Charles Ray Workman, 37, was the owner of MN Crete Pools, LLC, a Minnesota company that marketed and sold concrete swimming pools to families and individuals in and throughout the Twin Cities area. Beginning in 2021 continuing through 2022, Workman knowingly devised a scheme to market and advertise concrete swimming pools and pool installation services to customers around Minnesota. In soliciting down payments for the swimming pools, Workman represented to his customers that in exchange for their down payments he could “secure” their spot in MN Crete Pool’s workload for the installation of a swimming pool the same year their down payment was provided.

According to court documents, between April 2021 and June 2021, Workman collected down payments from approximately one customer a month and subsequently failed to complete pool projects for any of those customers. Despite this, Workman increased the rate at which he signed up customers and collected down payments throughout the remaining summer months, despite knowing he had not fully utilized customer down payments for the completion of pool projects. Workman sometimes falsely represented to customers he only had one spot left available for a certain customer, before continuing to solicit and signup customers after making that representation.

According to court documents, Workman converted some or all of customers’ payments for his own personal use and benefit, including $3,000 in child support payments, $18,000 at a casino, and more than $6,000 on a horse and saddle. In total, Workman fraudulently solicited and received more than $750,000 in payments from customers for whom he did not construct and install a complete and operational concrete swimming pool.

Workman, who was arrested on March 27, 2023, in Nashville, Tennessee, made his initial appearance before Magistrate Judge Alistair E. Newbern, in U.S. District Court in the Middle District of Tennessee. He will appear for his arraignment on April 10, 2023, before Magistrate Judge David T. Schultz in U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota.

This case is the result of an investigation conducted by the FBI, the Scott County Sheriff’s Office, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, and the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Esther Soria Mignanelli is prosecuting the case.

An indictment is merely an allegation and the defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.