A former midcoast builder must pay $385,000 in restitution for defrauding 57 of his clients, but he won’t serve any prison time for the theft, according to a sentencing handed down in Rockland on Thursday.
The contractor, Malcolm Stewart, will serve three years of probation for the theft charges, but his prison sentence was suspended. He closed his Union-based business, Castle Builders, in September 2019, after leaving clients with unfinished projects for which he’d been paid $437,906. He also put 22 employees out of work.
Justice Daniel Billings said he took many factors into consideration before deciding to suspend Stewart’s prison sentence, after state prosecutors recommended that he spend 30 months behind bars. One of the major contributing factors, Billings said, was Stewart’s end-stage kidney disease. He is expected to live only a few more years, according to his defense attorney, David Bobrow.
“The struggle for me, as a judge and as a human being, is, is it appropriate to sentence someone to a large portion of their remaining lifespan … for a nonviolent crime?” Billings said.
Stewart was sentenced on Thursday following two days of hearings at the Knox County Superior Court, in which 16 of his former clients — speaking for themselves or through representatives — testified about the effects his crimes had on their lives.
The sentencing came after Stewart pleaded guilty to theft charges last summer, using what’s known as an Alford plea to maintain his innocence while acknowledging there was enough evidence for him to be found guilty if it went to trial, the Midcoast Villager reported at the time. He was initially indicted in March of 2021.
Last year, Stewart and his wife, Elizabeth, were also forced to pay $744,253 in restitution as part of a civil case, after they ducked out of a Zoom court hearing.
Despite receiving deposits from his customers, Stewart usually performed minimal to no work. State prosecutors have argued that he knew he did not have the capacity to complete the projects.
Both the prosecutor, Suzanne Russell, and Bobrow called in doctors to discuss Stewart’s care for his kidney disease. According to Stewart’s doctor where he now lives in South Carolina, Blake Shusterman, Stewart must receive dialysis treatment three times per week, as well as treatment for other conditions including diabetes and high blood pressure.
Kevin Griffiths, a kidney doctor in Maryland, said at the hearing on Thursday that in his experience, he doubts that Stewart would get the same quality of care in prison compared to what he would get if not incarcerated. Furthermore, prisons have high transmissions of viral diseases, including COVID-19, and people in dialysis have weaker immune systems, Griffiths said.
Jennifer McConnell, a doctor in Maine who works with the Department of Corrections, said in testimony that Stewart’s care could be managed if he were to go to prison. Inmates who are in dialysis are taken to community partners for their treatment, McConnell said.
Prosecutors have also accused Stewart of convincing two clients to advance him a loan of $50,000 in December 2018, falsely claiming he had cash flow problems due to customers not paying him. He said that he had the capacity to repay the loan, but Stewart never made a single payment on it.
April Wolf, one of the clients Stewart defrauded, said at the hearing that she hired him to build a workshop for her and her husband. They paid Castle Builders a total of $192,750 for the work, according to court documents. The majority of that total, about $140,000, was from their retirement savings, Wolf said.
Stewart started the work, but never finished it, Wolf said. Her husband died this summer, and she is unable to finish the project herself, and is still paying off the debt from the fraud.
“He knew exactly what he was doing when he stole our life savings,” Wolf said. “He only preyed on folks who were elderly, and some of them were supposed to be his friends. Mr. Stewart is no different than the predator that preys on people to destroy them.”
Wolf lost the most money to Stewart out of the 57 defrauded clients. Others lost between $400 and $37,500, according to court documents. Most who spoke at the hearing on Wednesday said they did not have the funds, physical ability or remaining trust in contractors to finish the projects Stewart started.
Seven people, most from Stewart’s church in South Carolina, testified in his defense, claiming he is a good friend, a good man and someone who helps people. Stewart’s wife also testified.
During his own testimony on Thursday, Stewart addressed both the defrauded clients behind him in court and the judge. He said he didn’t create Castle Builders to fail, and he said all he thinks about is the people who were affected by his decisions.
“I made decisions that hurt these people behind me. I made decisions that took their money,” Stewart said. “They’re right. I sat in their homes. I sat at their tables. I ate meals with them. … I did things that I thought I had to do because I didn’t want to fail, and I tried to keep this business going, your honor.”
