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Hey everyone, and welcome back to Exposed Scandalous Files of
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the Elite. I'm your host, Jim Chapman, and today I'm
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bringing you another Exposed original series episode, and this one
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centers around two particular people, a married couple by the
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name of Christopher and Raquel Judge, who just this past year,
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in twenty twenty five, pleaded guilty to nearly five million
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dollars in contractor fraud. This case was out of Texas,
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and this one is very personal to me, and I'm
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gonna just tell you quickly why this is so personal
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to me. So if you're not from the Louisiana area,
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you may or may not know about this story. In
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twenty sixteen, right here where I'm recording from in Livingston Parish, Louisiana,
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we experienced what some called a thousand year flood. Just
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a quick look at what happened on August twelfth of
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twenty sixteen. It starts raining. It was in the morning,
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it was raining hard, it was raining steady, and it
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never stopped for like three days, over thirty inches of
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rain in the first two days alone in my city
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of Denim Springs, where I'm recording out of right now,
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that entire city flooded, some thirty five hundred rooftops, businesses, houses,
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you name it. My house where I live in particular,
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had over five feet of water. We lost every single
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thing we owned that day, along with thirty five hundred
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other people. So I tell you that to tell you this.
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When the dust settled and it was time to gut
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your home and start all over, the contractors to fix
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your home were coming out of the woodwork. I mean
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you got thirty five hundred plus people needing their houses
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completely rebuilt. I mean it was down to the sticks,
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and the contractors were coming from everywhere, every state in
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the country to work. Some of them very very good,
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some of them very very legit. Unfortunately, many of them shysters.
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A lot of these shysters. For example, they would require
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down payments for material, and sometimes even honest contractors required
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down payments. If you're working with a contractor for your house,
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or even a painting contractor or something like that, and
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they don't require down payment, they're definitely legit. I mean
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they're putting money out there and they're expecting to get
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paid after the work. Doesn't mean they're not legit. Some
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companies do require a deposit for material, and that way,
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if something happens and the parties don't agree somewhere during
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the process, you keep your material and you paid for it.
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It's your stuff, right, But sometimes those down payments can
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get pretty hefty, five ten thousand dollars, let's say, and
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in a lot of cases they just never show up
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again when they are shysters like what I'm going to
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tell you about today. Now, in my case, a lot
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of people had already lost everything and then to get
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taken advantage of I mean, I witnessed it firsthand. I
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watched people go through it. So to say I'm not
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a fan of contractor fraud is an understatement of monumental proportions.
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I hate, absolutely hate those people. And that brings me
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to this story that I'm going to tell you about today. Now,
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this story takes place primarily in the Fort Worth, Texas area,
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which Fort Worth, y'all very large city. I'm sure everybody
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that just heard me say that is familiar with at
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least where it's located over a million people in the
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Fort Worth area alone, and it has just experienced unprecedented growth,
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especially in the last twenty years. It is actually the
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eleventh largest city in the country currently. Now, anytime you
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have massive growth like that, you're gonna have a lot
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of people in that area that are part of a
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construction industry of some sort. Right, You're gonna have a
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lot of people that own painting businesses, a lot of
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people that own frame businesses, roofing businesses, et cetera. And
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you're going to have to have those people because you
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need someone to build the schools, to build the office buildings,
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to build the residential housing that would be required in
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an area that is growing that fast. And the subjects
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I'm talking about today, Brandon and Roquel, they were in
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the construction business. So before I get into what they did,
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I want to tell you a little bit about what
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is known about each of them prior to getting involved
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in their business. And we'll start with Raquel. Now, as
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of this recording, she's thirty six years old, resident of Texas,
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and there's not a whole lot publicly out there regarding
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her early life. But what I can tell you is
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that as far as address history, much of her address
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history is involving the Fort Worth area, so that's likely
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where she was born raised. Now by around twenty seventeen,
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Raquel enters the real estate field, and apparently she was
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pretty successful. As a matter of fact, there's a twenty
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twenty one interview out there that she gave while she
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was in real estate, and she made a claim of
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selling about forty homes plus per year, which sounds like
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good stats to me. I'm not a real estate agent,
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but that's about three houses a month, So apparently she
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was seeing success in real estate.
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Now.
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Part of that interview centered around how she met Christopher Judge,
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who would eventually become her husband, and the way she
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met him is kind of interesting. It was through TikTok.
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Of course, Raquel having a real estate business and being
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a realtor, she was promoting what she did through TikTok,
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and she must have been pretty good and had a
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lot of good foresight on this because it was twenty
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twenty when she started on TikTok, and as you may know,
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TikTok back then isn't what it is now, and as
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far as people figuring out how to use it for
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promoting their businesses, it just wasn't used often for that
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purpose back then. So she was maybe kind of a
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trendsetter on that, and she became a pretty good influencer
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on TikTok, and as I said, that's how she met
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Christopher Judge. He was also on TikTok and when they met,
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it was actually in March of twenty twenty, and COVID,
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as you know, was rearing its ugly head also in
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March of twenty twenty. So they meet in person in
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March of twenty twenty. COVID hits like the next day,
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and I'm not making this up. They actually quarantine with
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each other after that first meeting in March of twenty twenty,
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and it wasn't long. As a matter of fact, it
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was June of twenty twenty, just three months later that
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they get engaged. And in November of twenty twenty they
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get married. And that brings me to Christopher Judge, who
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is the guy she married. Let me tell you a
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little bit about him. Well. Currently, as of this recording,
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Christopher is thirty five years old, which incidentally, when these
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two got married, I don't know if I said it.
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I don't think I did. He was twenty nine and
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she was thirty. So Christopher he attended the University of
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Texas and there's no record that I can find out
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there as to whether he actually graduated from the University
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of Texas, but he did have a lot of experience
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in construction. As a matter of fact, at one point
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there was a LinkedIn page for him where he had
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a company, and that company was called Judge Development LLC.
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And it was a construction development company. Now, in the
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interview I mentioned above from twenty twenty one where his
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wife where Kel was interviewed on the Real Estate podcast,
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she would mention him again and describe his expertise in
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the construction field and just kind of rave on that
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she mentioned that they had launched a business together in
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August of twenty twenty related to construction. Now, when Chris Judge,
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who had his own tiktoks, when he would do those tiktoks.
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One thing that was discovered later on when all of
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this fraud came out was the fact that he would
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falsely represent himself as a licensed architect. And that's a
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big deal. Falsely representing yourself as anything you're not is
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a big deal. But when you get into where you
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have to be licensed through your state in your line,
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that in and of itself is a major problem. He
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was not a licensed architect as a matter of fact,
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several years later in March of twenty twenty two, prior
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to this fraud stuff coming out, And I think that's
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important because I believe this spearheaded that and it got
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eyes on him he didn't want on him. But prior
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to all that fraud stuff coming out, the Texas Board
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of Architectural Examiners they actually send him a formal letter
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in writing and they are accusing him of violating state
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code by misrepresenting himself as a licensed architect, basically telling him, hey,
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you don't have a license in architecture with this state
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and you need equip making these TikTok videos saying that
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you do. And that would be something that when we
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look back on this later on, we discover, hey, this
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guy has zero integrity. So in these TikTok videos, both
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he and his wife become pretty big influencers, and when
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they formed their business together, the construction business, they would
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use TikTok to kind of build up their name and
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build up their clientele, and they would market themselves, as
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a matter of fact, as the Chip in Joanna Gaines
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style influencers. Of course, Chip and Joanna Gaines, very popular
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host of an HGTV show, called fixer upper, so they
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were trying to be kind of the second coming of that,
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and they would promote that they were just as good
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as Chip and Joanna Gaines at building custom homes and renovations.
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And as a matter of fact, if you were in
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the Fort Worth, Texas area, they were the people to call.
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And this took off. They became pretty big influencers doing that.
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They were good promoters, and one thing that helped. They
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were attractive couple, both young. They looked very professional, they
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looked very put together. They had a lot of style,
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a lot of pizazz with them. They could talk well.
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They just did not have the look that you would
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expect of someone to be accused of in pleading guilty
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to what I'm about to tell you about. And it's
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important to mention they did have kids. As a matter
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of fact, they had a blended family. He had a
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couple of kids and she had a couple of kids.
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So when they got married, they actually had four children
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they were raising. And that's important because there's victims all
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over the place in this and their children were victims
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as well, as you find out when we get to
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the sentencing phase of this one. So I'm going to
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bring you through a timeline of everything that transpired. In
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August of twenty twenty, they form their business meaning Christopher
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and Roquel, and that company is called Judge DFWA, LLC.
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And I would imagine DFW Dallas Fort Worth. Right over
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the next three years until at least January of twenty
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twenty three, this couple defrauded over forty people in six
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Texas counties of nearly five million dollars. These counties include Dallas, Denton,
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Wise County, Park County, Tarot County in Johnson County, Texas.
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Now in January of twenty twenty three, they end that
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scheme just totally stop. And it appears the primary reason
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for this is that although they have never come out
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publicly and said this, there were so many complaints by
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this time made on them for all of this fraud.
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It was just mounting. Started with one, went to two,
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then went to ten, then went to twenty, then went
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to twenty five and beyond, and by January of twenty
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twenty three, the heat was just cooking for this couple,
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and it appears they just got spooped. Maybe they figured
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out they didn't want to test their luck any further,
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but it does appear that they just kind of stopped
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at that time as far as the scamming was concerned. Now, obviously,
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what the disturbing thing is in all of this is
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that at that point in time, I'm glad they stopped.
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They already had forty victims out there, and that's what
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these people are. They're victims. They are victimized by this couple.
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And you would think that all of this would have
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stopped much earlier when the first ten complaints were going in.
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So I don't give them any credit for in twenty
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twenty three just stopping. But as always happens always you
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can bank on in life, everything done in darkness will
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eventually come to light. And that occurred when on August
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eleventh of twenty twenty five, a criminal complaint is filed
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in the Northern District of Texas. And it's eye opening,
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to say the least. Now, Initially, for whatever reason, this
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criminal complaint was sealed, but it has since been unsealed.
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And I have the criminal complaint right in front of
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me right now, and I'm going to review it with you.
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And it starts off with the conspiracy in scheme to
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defraud section and it says It was part of the
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scheme for Christopher and Raquel Judge to advertise their business
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Judge DFW using Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok to post messages.
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The relevant post and messages represented that they owned a
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custom home building and remind foineling business. The defendants purported
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to offer architecture, construction and interior design services and falsely
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representing Chris Judge was an architect. It was part of
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the scheme that wants a potential customer contacted Judge GFW
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and expressed interest in building a home or remodeling. Chris
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Judge would submit a below market bid for the project,
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promising completion within four to six months. And that's important,
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y'all because when you're scamming people, and I'll put this
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in layman terms. If you have a legitimate painting company
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and that painting company says I'll paint the exterior your
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home for fifty five hundred dollars, and then you get
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another bid and the person says I'll paint the xteror
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your home for twenty five hundred dollars, you might want
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to raise an eyebrow. I always recommend people get three
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bids for any type of contractor work. And the reason
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that I do that is three bids will reflect if
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one is absolutely ridiculous. So you'll if you have a
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bid for fifty five hundred dollars, one for forty nine