Faux Fixer Upper: A Tik-Tok Couple’s 5 Million Dollar Fraud

0:20 Hey everyone, and welcome back to Exposed Scandalous Files of the Elite. I'm your host, Jim Chapman, and today I'm bringing you another Exposed original series episode, and this one centers around two particular people, a married couple by the name of Christopher and Raquel Judge, who just this past year, in twenty twenty five, pleaded guilty to nearly five million dollars in contractor fraud. This case was out of Texas, and this one is very personal to me, and I'm gonna just tell you quickly why this is so personal to me. So if you're not from the Louisiana area, you may or may not know about this story. In twenty sixteen, right here where I'm recording from in Livingston Parish, Louisiana, we experienced what some called a thousand year flood. Just a quick look at what happened on August twelfth of twenty sixteen. It starts raining. It was in the morning, it was raining hard, it was raining steady, and it never stopped for like three days, over thirty inches of rain in the first two days alone in my city of Denim Springs, where I'm recording out of right now, that entire city flooded, some thirty five hundred rooftops, businesses, houses,

1:51 you name it. My house where I live in particular, had over five feet of water. We lost every single thing we owned that day, along with thirty five hundred other people. So I tell you that to tell you this. When the dust settled and it was time to gut your home and start all over, the contractors to fix your home were coming out of the woodwork. I mean you got thirty five hundred plus people needing their houses completely rebuilt. I mean it was down to the sticks, and the contractors were coming from everywhere, every state in the country to work. Some of them very very good, some of them very very legit. Unfortunately, many of them shysters.

2:45 A lot of these shysters. For example, they would require down payments for material, and sometimes even honest contractors required down payments. If you're working with a contractor for your house, or even a painting contractor or something like that, and they don't require down payment, they're definitely legit. I mean they're putting money out there and they're expecting to get paid after the work. Doesn't mean they're not legit. Some companies do require a deposit for material, and that way, if something happens and the parties don't agree somewhere during the process, you keep your material and you paid for it.

3:28 It's your stuff, right, But sometimes those down payments can get pretty hefty, five ten thousand dollars, let's say, and in a lot of cases they just never show up again when they are shysters like what I'm going to tell you about today. Now, in my case, a lot of people had already lost everything and then to get taken advantage of I mean, I witnessed it firsthand. I watched people go through it. So to say I'm not a fan of contractor fraud is an understatement of monumental proportions. I hate, absolutely hate those people. And that brings me to this story that I'm going to tell you about today. Now, this story takes place primarily in the Fort Worth, Texas area, which Fort Worth, y'all very large city. I'm sure everybody that just heard me say that is familiar with at least where it's located over a million people in the Fort Worth area alone, and it has just experienced unprecedented growth, especially in the last twenty years. It is actually the eleventh largest city in the country currently. Now, anytime you have massive growth like that, you're gonna have a lot of people in that area that are part of a construction industry of some sort. Right, You're gonna have a lot of people that own painting businesses, a lot of

4:58 people that own frame businesses, roofing businesses, et cetera. And you're going to have to have those people because you need someone to build the schools, to build the office buildings, to build the residential housing that would be required in an area that is growing that fast. And the subjects I'm talking about today, Brandon and Roquel, they were in the construction business. So before I get into what they did, I want to tell you a little bit about what is known about each of them prior to getting involved in their business. And we'll start with Raquel. Now, as of this recording, she's thirty six years old, resident of Texas, and there's not a whole lot publicly out there regarding her early life. But what I can tell you is that as far as address history, much of her address history is involving the Fort Worth area, so that's likely where she was born raised. Now by around twenty seventeen, Raquel enters the real estate field, and apparently she was pretty successful. As a matter of fact, there's a twenty twenty one interview out there that she gave while she was in real estate, and she made a claim of selling about forty homes plus per year, which sounds like good stats to me. I'm not a real estate agent, but that's about three houses a month, So apparently she

6:29 was seeing success in real estate. Now. Part of that interview centered around how she met Christopher Judge, who would eventually become her husband, and the way she met him is kind of interesting. It was through TikTok. Of course, Raquel having a real estate business and being a realtor, she was promoting what she did through TikTok, and she must have been pretty good and had a lot of good foresight on this because it was twenty twenty when she started on TikTok, and as you may know, TikTok back then isn't what it is now, and as far as people figuring out how to use it for promoting their businesses, it just wasn't used often for that purpose back then. So she was maybe kind of a trendsetter on that, and she became a pretty good influencer on TikTok, and as I said, that's how she met Christopher Judge. He was also on TikTok and when they met, it was actually in March of twenty twenty, and COVID, as you know, was rearing its ugly head also in March of twenty twenty. So they meet in person in March of twenty twenty. COVID hits like the next day, and I'm not making this up. They actually quarantine with each other after that first meeting in March of twenty twenty, and it wasn't long. As a matter of fact, it

8:00 was June of twenty twenty, just three months later that they get engaged. And in November of twenty twenty they get married. And that brings me to Christopher Judge, who is the guy she married. Let me tell you a little bit about him. Well. Currently, as of this recording, Christopher is thirty five years old, which incidentally, when these two got married, I don't know if I said it. I don't think I did. He was twenty nine and she was thirty. So Christopher he attended the University of Texas and there's no record that I can find out there as to whether he actually graduated from the University of Texas, but he did have a lot of experience in construction. As a matter of fact, at one point there was a LinkedIn page for him where he had a company, and that company was called Judge Development LLC.

8:56 And it was a construction development company. Now, in the interview I mentioned above from twenty twenty one where his wife where Kel was interviewed on the Real Estate podcast, she would mention him again and describe his expertise in the construction field and just kind of rave on that she mentioned that they had launched a business together in August of twenty twenty related to construction. Now, when Chris Judge, who had his own tiktoks, when he would do those tiktoks. One thing that was discovered later on when all of this fraud came out was the fact that he would falsely represent himself as a licensed architect. And that's a big deal. Falsely representing yourself as anything you're not is a big deal. But when you get into where you have to be licensed through your state in your line, that in and of itself is a major problem. He was not a licensed architect as a matter of fact, several years later in March of twenty twenty two, prior to this fraud stuff coming out, And I think that's important because I believe this spearheaded that and it got eyes on him he didn't want on him. But prior to all that fraud stuff coming out, the Texas Board of Architectural Examiners they actually send him a formal letter in writing and they are accusing him of violating state

10:27 code by misrepresenting himself as a licensed architect, basically telling him, hey, you don't have a license in architecture with this state and you need equip making these TikTok videos saying that you do. And that would be something that when we look back on this later on, we discover, hey, this guy has zero integrity. So in these TikTok videos, both he and his wife become pretty big influencers, and when they formed their business together, the construction business, they would use TikTok to kind of build up their name and build up their clientele, and they would market themselves, as a matter of fact, as the Chip in Joanna Gaines style influencers. Of course, Chip and Joanna Gaines, very popular host of an HGTV show, called fixer upper, so they were trying to be kind of the second coming of that, and they would promote that they were just as good as Chip and Joanna Gaines at building custom homes and renovations.

11:37 And as a matter of fact, if you were in the Fort Worth, Texas area, they were the people to call. And this took off. They became pretty big influencers doing that. They were good promoters, and one thing that helped. They were attractive couple, both young. They looked very professional, they looked very put together. They had a lot of style, a lot of pizazz with them. They could talk well. They just did not have the look that you would expect of someone to be accused of in pleading guilty to what I'm about to tell you about. And it's important to mention they did have kids. As a matter of fact, they had a blended family. He had a couple of kids and she had a couple of kids.

12:25 So when they got married, they actually had four children they were raising. And that's important because there's victims all over the place in this and their children were victims as well, as you find out when we get to the sentencing phase of this one. So I'm going to bring you through a timeline of everything that transpired. In August of twenty twenty, they form their business meaning Christopher and Roquel, and that company is called Judge DFWA, LLC. And I would imagine DFW Dallas Fort Worth. Right over the next three years until at least January of twenty twenty three, this couple defrauded over forty people in six Texas counties of nearly five million dollars. These counties include Dallas, Denton, Wise County, Park County, Tarot County in Johnson County, Texas.

13:34 Now in January of twenty twenty three, they end that scheme just totally stop. And it appears the primary reason for this is that although they have never come out publicly and said this, there were so many complaints by this time made on them for all of this fraud. It was just mounting. Started with one, went to two, then went to ten, then went to twenty, then went to twenty five and beyond, and by January of twenty twenty three, the heat was just cooking for this couple, and it appears they just got spooped. Maybe they figured out they didn't want to test their luck any further, but it does appear that they just kind of stopped at that time as far as the scamming was concerned. Now, obviously, what the disturbing thing is in all of this is that at that point in time, I'm glad they stopped.

14:36 They already had forty victims out there, and that's what these people are. They're victims. They are victimized by this couple. And you would think that all of this would have stopped much earlier when the first ten complaints were going in. So I don't give them any credit for in twenty twenty three just stopping. But as always happens always you can bank on in life, everything done in darkness will eventually come to light. And that occurred when on August eleventh of twenty twenty five, a criminal complaint is filed in the Northern District of Texas. And it's eye opening, to say the least. Now, Initially, for whatever reason, this criminal complaint was sealed, but it has since been unsealed.

15:28 And I have the criminal complaint right in front of me right now, and I'm going to review it with you. And it starts off with the conspiracy in scheme to defraud section and it says It was part of the scheme for Christopher and Raquel Judge to advertise their business Judge DFW using Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok to post messages. The relevant post and messages represented that they owned a custom home building and remind foineling business. The defendants purported to offer architecture, construction and interior design services and falsely representing Chris Judge was an architect. It was part of the scheme that wants a potential customer contacted Judge GFW and expressed interest in building a home or remodeling. Chris Judge would submit a below market bid for the project, promising completion within four to six months. And that's important, y'all because when you're scamming people, and I'll put this in layman terms. If you have a legitimate painting company and that painting company says I'll paint the exterior your home for fifty five hundred dollars, and then you get another bid and the person says I'll paint the xteror your home for twenty five hundred dollars, you might want to raise an eyebrow. I always recommend people get three bids for any type of contractor work. And the reason that I do that is three bids will reflect if one is absolutely ridiculous. So you'll if you have a

17:01 bid for fifty five hundred dollars, one for forty nine hundred dollars, and one for twenty two hundred dollars, throw the twenty two hundred out. And the reason that I say that is the ridiculous bid like that something's wrong. And in this case, this asshole new, he knew I'm not gonna do it anyway. I'm gonna take that money and do other things. And we'll get into that, but he would promise completion within four to six months, and once the customer agreed to hire the defendants, the customer would sign a contract and pay the defendant in multiple installments via wire transfer or check. And the reason that's important is that causes interstate wire transmissions, and you know, sometimes you'll end up going across state lines. Maybe it's someone from California that's moving to Texas wants to build a house or wire money to you, and it becomes a federal issue then, not just a state issue. So that's why that point is brought up. It also says it was part of the scheme for the defendants to maintain a Chase business Bank account to give the appearance that Judge GFW was a legitimate business. Many victims were instructed to wire installment payment money directly to the business account.

18:17 Any checks were made payable to the business and deposited into the business account. Once the victim's money was deposited, however, the defendants often transferred the money into other jointly held Chase Bank accounts and use the money to perpetrate the scheme and for personal living expenses, including luxury items. It was part of the scheme for the defendants to do partial work on the construction projects to induce the victims to continue to make installment payments on their agreements, either by wire or check. So they would let's say they agreed to remodel your bathroom and your bedroom, and they finished the bathroom and say, up, we need to buy more material, I need another check. Or maybe they don't finish it. They finished just a certain percentage of the bathroom, and they just continually ask for more money. That's a red flag, folks. It was further part of the scheme for the defendant to make excuses and assure the victim.

19:15 The problems and delays in construction would be corrected in that the project will be completed in time if the victims continue to make their installment payments. So they say they and I haven't seen the contract, but I would imagine they would start the project and it's a four month project. Maybe they said every thirty days you got to pay twenty five percent, and they would delay it to get that other twenty five percent check. But they would just blame it on something else. Well, the materials not at home depot, or I ordered it and it came in wrong, and I'm waiting for the right material to come in. But you know, per this contract, he's still going to pay me because it's thirty days later.

19:57 Shister's man. So it goes on to say it was like part of the scheme for the defendants to fail to pay the subcontractors they hire for the projects, and consistent with the nature of the scheme, the defendants often employed substandard subcontractors to do only minimal work. Well, stop there and let me educate you on this. I know a lot about this stuff, because y'all, I was in construction for twenty years. Let me educate you about this. In this case, what they're saying is maybe the painting aspect. So if they got this contract to build your house custom custom home build, they're not going to sit there and paint it and do the flooring and do the cabinets and everything. What do they do? They sub that out to a painter. Typically, unless you're a very large contractor custom home contractor and you have in house painters, but most of them sub that out to somebody else.

20:53 That painter goes in, they paint the walls, and then they are paid by the general contract But there's also another catch to that, and that is the material companies. So if you're a painting company and you're dealing with let's just say X y Z custom home builder and custom home builder, he purchases that paint on credit, and he goes to your home, your custom home, and he drops that paint off to the painter, and the painter paints it. But then that general contractor never pays the paint company. Guess what the paint company can do. The manufacturer, the Faral Calhoun of the world or the Searan Williams of the world, they will then file a lane against your house because that house was painted with their paint.

21:47 They can do that legally by law. Now a lot has to go on for that to happen. But especially same thing with subcontractors. If a cabinet guy is in there and he installs your cabinets and he never gets paid from the GC, you better believe he's gonna put a lien on your home and you can never sell that home. As a matter of fact, you can never close on that home until that guy gets paid. That's why people get so screwed. So they did their part. They paid the general contractor, but the general contractor is not paying his subs. Big problem. We'll move on. As a result, from at least in Or about August twentieth of twenty twenty and continuing until January of twenty twenty three, the defendants defrauded over forty victims who resided in six counties within Texas in relation to at least twenty four construction projects. The defendants fraud loss totaled over five point four million dollars. Then it gets into the bank account information from Honor about December of twenty eighteen through November of twenty twenty, Roquel Judge worked as a licensed realtor in South Lake, Texas. She told her clients she was also in the home designed to core business honor. About August seventh of twenty twenty, Chris and Riquel formed Judge DFW, registered to do business in Texas, with both being listed as managing members. On November eleventh of twenty twenty, the

23:18 defendants were married in honor. About June of twenty twenty two, Judge df W the company forfeited its registration to do business in Texas as an LLC honor. About October second of twenty twenty, the defendants opened to Chase account in their names as a business checking account, and both defendants were signatories. Defendants were also owners and signatories of several other Chase Bank accounts, all open between October of twenty twenty and June of twenty twenty one, including three corporate accounts. Then, it says, in May of twenty twenty two, the Texas Board of Architecture issue to form a warning to Chris Judge and I told you about that, how he was claiming to be an architect and he wasn't. The defendants solicitated clients for architecture and home construction through Facebook Instagram and TikTok, and by word of mouth, the defendants told relevant victims, often in emails or text messages, that they were a one stop shop for custom home building, purporting to offer architecture, construction, and interior design services, and falsely represented Chris Judge was an architect. For example, during twenty twenty, the defendants advertiser services on Quote Alliance, Working Moms and Moms of south Lake Facebook group pages, and they actually show screenshots of them advertising their business and it says during the relevant time period, Chris Judge advertised as a realtor builder in architect and it shows a screenshot of

24:50 his Twitter page. Then it says between on or about the dates shown in the chart below, the defendants enter contracts with each of the victims shown in the chart below, after having falsely represented to the victims that they were a full service architect, construction, and interior design firm. The defendants started each of the construction projects listed in the chart below and accepted multiple installment payments. And listen to these payments, y'all, it's a chart. It shows the victim and of course it just listened as individual one and two, the location, the date, and the approximate total of payments, but I'm going to just cover the payments with you.

25:31 In one case dated twelve, twenty eight to twenty one, total amount of payments to defendants two hundred and fifty five thousand, four hundred and sixty dollars in another case, fifty two thousand dollars in payments in another case, two hundred and sixty two thousand, two hundred and forty dollars in another case, one hundred and ninety eight thousand, five hundred and ten dollars, in another case, one hundred and ninety eight thousand dollars, in another case three one hundred and sixty four thousand, three hundred and ten dollars, and it says for each relevant project, Typically defendants would secure money from victims as follows and listen to this, Raquel Judge would schedule a meeting between the victims and both defendants.

26:18 During the meeting, Raquel Judge would explain the construction contract and that a ten thousand dollars deposit was required, and Chris Judge and the victims would execute that contract, meaning they would sign it. Then Raquel Judge would email the sign contract to the victims for their records. Seems legit right. Once the relevant victims paid the initial deposit to the defendants via check or wire, Chris Judge will prepare architectural plans and present them to the victims, and the parties would agree on any changes to the plans. Now, what he would do in that case is he would just go to a real of freaking real licensed architect and he would say, draw up plans, and he would pay for those, and he would bring those and say, is this what you want me to build? So eventually those architectural plans would get finalized and were killed. Judge would help the victims select the design material and determine the cost.

27:21 To that end where killed, Judge would send photos and price sheets to the victim so they would pick paint colors, for example, and she would help them with that, assist them with the paint colors, and then she would send them, hey, this is how much it's going to cost to paint your whole house in this aspect of the construction. Now, at some point, each relevant victim began to question project delays, and in completion, Chris Judge would make excuses for the delays and phone calls and text messages telling the victims that continued installment payments would move the projects along. And don't know, you know, I would just be guessing or inferring to tell you exactly how I would do that, because I don't know, because I don't think like pieces of shit like Christopher Judge. But I'm sure it was very imaginative, inventive, and likely very convincing. The fact of the matter is he was just trying to delay them so he could get another check and encourage them to pay more money, goes on to say. With respect to additional projects not listed in the chart above, where victims were defrauded, the defendant followed the same general pattern of conduct.

28:35 For each project, the defendant submitted a bid that was substantially lower than the others received by the victim. Big red flag, folks, I can't Everybody loves to save money and you want to go with that cheapest bid, right, Always get three bids, And if one is substantially lower then the other two, something is freaking wrong. If one substantially higher than the other two, something may be wrong on the other end of the spectrum. But always get three bids, please the defendant. And additional victims would then enter to contract. The victims would make installment payments to the primary Justice DFW operating account, and the defendants never completed or meaningfully started any of the projects, and the defendants ceased communication with the victims after substantial contract payments were made to the defendants. Now, can you imagine that feeling you're building your dream home? Right, You're dealing with these people you think are fucking legit. And I'm sorry for all the cuss words, and this one. This just lights me on fire because I was so close to this industry for so long. But you make these payments to this company you think is legit, and they keep telling you they needy more money, and you're giving them the benefit of the freaking doubt. You're giving them more money, and then they quit answering their phone. Imagine your feeling if you had paid out three hundred and forty thousand dollars by that point.

30:06 Jim, did you see what happened in Texas today? Wait before you tell me that, let me tell you what happened in New York. It cannot be as crazy as the case I told you about yesterday in Louisiana. You know what we should do a podcast about it. And with that we did. Crime War Weekly covers the crime news headlines that have dominated the week. We cover trending crimes from all over the country and even sprinkle in a few globally. Crime War Weekly is available now wherever you listen to your podcasts. Simply by searching Crime War Weekly or clicking the link in the description of this podcast. So it goes on to say, from October twentieth to January twenty twenty three, as part of the scheme, the defendants deposited approximately six point one million into the Justice DFW operating account. As part of the scheme, frequently money from the victim's installment payments.

31:04 Hold on to your hats, we're used by the defendants to purchase construction materials for unrelated client construction projects. So what does that mean. Let's stop there for a second. That means that if I had bit a job and got that job as a general contractor, and then people pay me ten thousand dollars to start their job, well, what they don't know is I've got a job prior to their job where I take that ten thousand dollars. They just pay me to buy paint for the prior customer's job that is fucked up. They're using they're basically robbing Peter to pay Paul. They're using money from the current job to pay for one that they can't pay for.

31:51 And that only works when it never stops, right. It only works until the point where you don't have the money to pay the prior job. But it wasn't that they didn't have the money because of the material costs just went up, or they were underbidding jobs and they they would give these low bids in an honest way to try to get the job, and then they realized, oops, I underbid the job, and they just didn't have the money. It was because they were spending it on themselves. As a matter of fact. From October twenty twenty to January twenty twenty three is part of the scheme, the defendants spent over eight hundred and sixty five thousand dollars of Justice DFW installment payments on their own personal living expenses, including payments of the approximate amounts listed below. Listen to these numbers. Two hundred and eighty five thousand on payroll payments to the defendants, So they're paying their own salary. Right, that's okay, that's okay if you're going to finish someone's home and it's part of your business, I mean you need to get paid as a business owner. That they spent two hundred and eighty five thousand dollars on that one hundred and thirty three thousand dollars. The government has no idea what they spent that on, because they were atm cash withdrawals over that time period, eighty two thousand dollars on purchases through Amazon dot Com for themselves, seventy thousand dollars on get this, civil legal fees and other

33:23 lawsuit collts. So they were getting money intended to pay for someone's house to buy material with, and they were using it to pay these lawsuits. They were getting from prior homeowners twenty seven thousand dollars on personal mortgage payments for their house. Which think about that, you've already withdrawn two hundred and eighty five thousand dollars at least for payroll payments to yourselves, and then separate from that, you're taking twenty seven thousand dollars off to pay your mortgage with. Well, you should use the two hundred and eighty five thousand you already withdrew for yourself as payroll to pay for your own mortgage. Right, Get this, ten thousand dollars on plastic surgery, somebody probably got some new boobs, and ten thousand dollars on purchases at Walmart. As a result of the scheme, Christopher Judge and were Killed Judge fraudulently obtained approximately four point eight million dollars from over forty victims on at least twenty four construction projects, none of which were completed or intended to complete during the course of the scheme. Moreover, both Christopher and Rakall Judge received a total of four hundred and twenty four citations from city code enforcement for violations on projects they were working on in Runaway Bay, which is in Wise County, Texas. That complaint comes out and the very next day an arrest warrant is issued for both of their arrest and they

34:55 appear in court, and surprisingly to me, considering the si of this scheme and just the horrendous, horrible nature of it, they're actually both released on what's name is PR bonds, which are personal recognance bonds. Basically, they sign their names and they have conditions included in that maybe they got to wear ankle monitors or whatever. But they don't sit in jail long and a lot of the information on this, for whatever reason, is sealed. So a few days after their release, on August fifteenth of twenty twenty five, a preliminary hearing is held. And just to catch you up on what occurs at these preliminary hearings, it's where the prosecution presents their case to the judge. The defense doesn't mount a defense, and a prelimb hearing only the prosecution, and it is intended to show the judge, hey, we've got enough evidence to move on to an indictment and actually indict this couple. When you're arrested, you're not necessarily indicted at that point. So at these prelim hearings, some of the victims, as you can imagine, they testify. In a couple of weeks later, on September third of twenty twenty five, a grand jury does indeed indict the couple on seven counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and they're any shipboule of trouble. But here's really what gets my ass pissed off. Fucking plea deal strikes again, and

36:30 it strikes on December seventeenth, just a couple of weeks ago. When on that day in twenty twenty five, Raquel Judge pleads guilty to just one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. So with that one count, she's facing up to five years in prison. Now she won't get all that. I don't suspect I would be surprised if she did. Any jail time is just where I'm at with these cases at this point in time. But that's what she's looking at. A couple of weeks after that, on December thirtieth of twenty twenty five, just hell less than two weeks from my recording of this right now, Chris Judge he pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. And in his case, he had a plea deal basically capping his potential imprisonment for a little over six years. So he cuts a deal. And basically when he cut that deal, they said, we promise you you're not going to get more than a little over six years.

37:41 If he gets any prison time at all, it can't be more than that. I don't put anything past anybody anymore. When it comes to prison sentences. So in this case, the sentencing for Raquel will occur in April of this year April of twenty twenty six, and for Christopher in May of this year. And of course I'm gonna keep you all posted on that. The FBI did release a statement on it. I'm not gonna read that to you because I've already covered all the details of this case with you. But sentencing coming up. Not real confident they're gonna get what they deserve in their sentencing. I mean, in my opinion, you cannot get any lower than what these people have done. And I want you to listen to a quick clip of an actual victim who was victimized by these two people, and it's just so sad, y'all.

38:38 These are some people that were taken advantage of by Christopher and Raquel. Judge, listen to this and it comes from Fox four in Dallas. So North Texas home buyers say they will never recoup what they lost after they were caught in a massive housing fraud scam. A fourth couple has pleaded guilty to being involved in part of that scheme. Foxford Davidson Henri spoke to some of the homeowners about what they went through. David, We'll see if these victims say the couple came off as credible. They had all sorts of social media postings in well produced videos. They looked legitimate, but it turned out to be a scam, covering millions multimillions of dollars and dozens of victims. For more than thirty years, this less property has been home for Shelley Bush's family.

39:29 We moved here. In ninety two when. Our kids were little. A few years back, Shelley and her husband changed things up. It would make sense to sell our home to our daughter and her husband and their three kids and multi generational live. This is the status a couple of hours ago. That change involved a two hundred thousand dollars remodeling project. This isn't done yet, doesn't have any stability under anything. An incomplete project, mirroring story of dozens of families. All say they worked with Chris and Raquel Judge. Hey guys, I'm Chris and I'm Roquel. Wore with the Judge DFW real estate group. Prosecutors say they used social media under the business name Judge DFW to carry out their scheme. They promised below market prices completed in four to six months. They're now facing federal prison time for their actions.

40:22 There were families whose kids did not get Christmas for a year or two. There were families that filed bankruptcy. We did have to file bankruptcy, and you know, we're dealing with that for another five years. Jeremy Congleton says he hired the Judges company to design and construct his family's home into catur but the Judges never finished it. His family lost a quarter million dollars. His two daughters, excited to live in a new home, forced to live with him and his wife in a camper for eighteen months. They didn't have Christmas for about three years, and that's it. Then they walked off. Kristin Newman says this how the Judges left her home construction project in Cleeburn. She lost roughly two hundred thousand dollars and spent the same amount of money for someone else to finish the job. This isn't about bad business decisions or being a bad builder.

41:13 This is about conscious decisions. The Department of Justice says more than forty victims were stammed of nearly five million dollars by the Judges broken promises of newly constructed homes and renovations between twenty twenty and twenty twenty three. I kept believing and believing, like, okay, we'll write another check. Kayleie Simmons says it's unclear if the judges began with fraudulent intentions or got in over their heads. What she does know is at some point there was clear intention to not follow through. I finally, after everybody else realized, Okay, that's not the case. The Department of Justice says the judges will pay some form of restitution. It's unclear to what extent.

41:54 We'll never get back what we lost. But even if some money is recouped, Shelley says, what was really stolen from her was tome. We don't have enough lifespan to re earn what we've lost. The judges are scheduled to be sentenced in the spring. Chris is facing up to twenty years in federal prison, his wife Quel, facing up to five years. Steve all Right, David Centenery reporting, David, thank you. I mean, we just don't have enough lifespan to recoup what we lost. Imagine that I just quoted what you just heard. Imagine that horrible, disgusting people we're talking about here with Raquel and Christopher Judge and sometimes with this show, I just want to blast people, y'all that are not good people in These two individuals right here make me absolutely sick. And y'all, this happens all the time in every state in the country. Be visulant. Make sure you know who you're dealing with when you're dealing with these contractors.

43:08 I know how these cats operate, and there's a lot of people out there looking to scam you out of your fucking money, point blank period. Because at the end of the day, penalties like this is why this stuff continues to occur. They just they're not anywhere near what they deserve in their sentences. That's all I got for you today. Thank you so much for listening. Quickly, exciting thing coming up. Look, everybody loves that bad Mom most people. I don't want to say everybody. There's probably a few people out there that maybe don't like it. I hope not. But most people that listen to my podcast love Bad Teachers, really enjoy the episodes that I put out because they like to like me. They like to hear people get excitosed that are doing nasty stuff like screwing with fifteen year old kids when you're a thirty five year old teacher and not having to pay any sort of penalty for that, similar to what I covered today. So one thing that I think is gonna be kind of fun to do with bad teachers and something you may enjoy is I'm going to do a state focused bad Teachers for every state in the country. And what I'm gonna do is each episode and I'll give you an example.

44:35 The first one that I'm doing is Arkansas, so it will be Bad Teachers hyphen Arkansas, and on that episode, I'm going to feature three teachers within the last five years that have been arrested and convicted of unspeakable acts. I'm going to cover every state in the Union, so get ready for that. We're starting with Bad Teachers Arkansas and that should be coming your way soon. And on each episode, I'll tell you what the subsequent episode, what state that is going to be for them. Thank you so much for listening. Check out the Patreon, Patreon dot com slash exposed podcast files. I couldn't do the show, it would not exist without my Patreon supporters. Just too expensive to run way too much time in research to do if they did not support this show monetarily. I love them like no other. They are like my spirit animals.

45:40 I cannot tell you how much I appreciate their support, and I'd love to have your support too. And hey, you get a lot of bang for your buck, commercial free early releases, bonus episodes, you get quarterly gifts if you're a top tier Patreon member. I drop a lot of files on there, pictures of everybody that I discussed on Exposed Scandalous Files of the Elite. Some of those are hard to really hard to find pictures, and I call those sinister scrape books. So there's sinister scrap books for everybody that I cover. Go check those out Patreon dot com, slash Exposed podcast files, And until next time for exposed Scandalous Files of the Elite, I'm your host, Jim Chapman. Much love,