WHITE LAKE, Mich. (WXYZ) — A White Lake couple is thankfule LARA has suspended the license of a residential contractor.
Doug Ellis says after Action News notified him LARA suspended the license of Jerry Wonsey, he says his day was made. Now he just wants the money he paid Wonsey for work that was supposed to be done to his home.
"Just fantastic," Doug said. "Finally won’t do this to another family ever again."
In 2017, 7 Action News took action after learning a White Lake couple paid near 15,000 to Jerry’s Concrete owned by Jerry Wonsey to build a garage.
"As soon as we handed him the check that’s when it all stopped," said Doug back in 2017.
Now LARA is suspending Wonsey’s license after he was convicted in December 2018 and sentenced to 90 days in jail and five years probation for larceny greater than 20,000 and fraud, after he entered a contract, deposited a check and left before completing the work.
The past two plus years has been nothing short of a nightmare for the Ellis family.
"Literally for our family it was very disheartening," Doug said. "A lot of arguments, false promises, question amongst the kids in the family, 'Dad what’s going on, why are you and mom so upset?'"
Doug says he’s glad Wonsey had his license suspended but still fears he’ll try to work anyways.
"I couldn’t trust him as far as I can throw a baseball, which isn’t very far," Doug said. "I assume he’s going to continue to do it without a license, I just know he will."
Wonsey was also supposed to reimburse the Ellis’ back but never did. Doug just wants to make sure what happened to him doesn’t happen to another family.
"It wasn’t to try to defame him, we just didn’t want him or nothing like that, we just didn’t want anybody else being taken by this gentleman because he’s a crook," Doug said.
Wonsey was given a copy of the formal complaint and has 15 days to respond.
LARA wants to remind the public who are planning on having work done to do your homework before hand.
