A Belleville roofer has pleaded guilty to defrauding multiple victims of thousands of dollars and has been handed a conditional sentence, which includes eight months house arrest.
Steven Bell, whose company is known as Steve Bell Roofing, pleaded guilty and was sentenced by Justice Stephen Hunter, in Belleville Court on Wednesday.
Court heard that between 2015 and 2019, Bell defrauded multiple property owners by taking deposits for roofing and other work, that was never completed, which the Crown says showed a pattern which needs to be deterred.
Bell’s defence attorney Pieter Kort says Bell never intended to defraud anyone, calling him “a bad businessman who got in over his head” and wasn’t able to keep up with the work he had promised.
While Bell did have some charges dropped, after paying money back to a handful of victims, he was still given a two-year less a day conditional sentence (which includes eight months house arrest), plus two years probation, the requirement to attend various counselling sessions and a no contact order with the victims.
Bell is also barred from running a business that takes deposits for the length of his punishment and will have to pay back a total of $28,500 in restitution to the remaining victims.
These charges were separate to ones laid in 2017 in regards to Bell’s company providing an unsafe work environment.
