1 day Ago By By PATRICK CLOONAN [email protected]
State police at Troop A, Indiana, said Wednesday that a Kittanning man wanted for an incident of home improvement fraud in March 2023 has been taken into custody. Troop A spokesman Trooper Cliff Greenfield said Matthew James Wilson, 34, turned himself in to troopers and was arraigned before Blairsville Magisterial District Judge Robert Steele Bell Sr. He was charged with three third-degree felony counts, making a false statement to induce an agreement for home improvement services (in this case, the sale of an electric generator); receiving an advance payment for services and failing to perform that service; and theft by deception involving false impression.
Wilson was released on an unsecured bond of $20,000 pending a preliminary hearing before Steele at 10:45 a.m. Dec.
4 Greenfield said the investigation began with the assignment of a member of the Troop A, Indiana, Patrol Unit to investigate an incident of theft in Burrell Township, Indiana County. He said a 55-year-old female reported that she saw an advertisement for Next Gen Electrical Services LLC, and on March 29, 2023, she met with the owner/operator, Wilson, regarding her interest in purchasing a backup generator for her residence. The victim told state police she then made a verbal agreement with Wilson and paid him $6,000 in cash for the purchase and installation of a Generac 22kW backup generator.
The victim further reported that Wilson provided her with a receipt, but failed to deliver the generator or perform any services and that he was not responding to her attempts to contact him. According to court records, Wilson also has run afoul of authorities in Armstrong County. In May 2023 charges of receiving an advance payment for services and failing to perform, and of theft by deception, were filed before Rural Valley Magisterial District Judge Kevin Lee McCausland, in a case dating back to March 7, 2022, in Mahoning Township, Armstrong County.
A hearing before McCausland was continued four times before the Rural Valley magistrate bound charges against Wilson over for trial in May 2023. Wilson was supposed to face trial in September 2023 before Armstrong County Common Pleas President Judge James J. Panchik, but that trial was continued into November and December of 2023 and recently his case has been listed as “inactive” on the state courts website.
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