Contractor Pleads Guilty To Grand Theft

Janet and Jim Allen figure they will never get back the $5,400 dollars Ron Stratton stole from them.

On Monday, they felt a bit of vindication anyway.

Stratton, a business contractor accused of bilking customers like the Allens out of thousands of dollars, abandoned months of excuses and evasions when he abruptly pleaded guilty to eight counts of grand theft.

“We’re very happy,” Janet Allen said after hearing the news. “It’s just a little bit of satisfaction knowing that at least he won’t be able to do it to other people.”

Dozens of people from around North Idaho, Eastern Washington and Western Montana have complained that Stratton defrauded them. In many cases, the victims paid him thousands of dollars for construction work that he failed to complete.

Stratton was scheduled to go to trial on eight counts of grand theft by deception.

“Mr. Stratton recognized the moral and civil responsibility to the alleged victims and other witnesses in this matter,” said Joel Ryan, Stratton’s public defender. “For that reason he decided to plead guilty so as not to put them through the stress and embarrassment of what could have been a highly publicized trial.”

Janet Allen was one of the 40 or so witnesses scheduled to testify. In July 1994 she paid Stratton $5,450 to build two pole barns on their property.

Stratton drilled a few holes in the ground and that was it, she said.

When they called him to find out why the work wasn’t done, he always had an excuse - his drill was broken, he had other jobs to do first. Eventually, Stratton stopped taking their calls, Allen said.

Their story is similar to that of many other victims, said Kootenai County Prosecutor Bill Douglas. The businessman is facing similar charges in Benewah County and in Montana.

Stratton admits he is a poor businessman, Ryan said. However, Stratton says he never intended to defraud people.

“Mr. Stratton has never denied he owes these people money, and he never denied that they were, in some fashion, wronged,” Ryan said. “He’s saying that circumstances got away from him, he lost control.”

Stratton contends that media attention is partly to blame for what happened.

Media stories about problems with his business caused people to cancel checks they had given him. In turn, he didn’t have the money or supplies to finish other jobs, Ryan said.

“It was important to these victims to learn of the defendant’s admission of guilt,” Douglas said. “It gives them some closure.”

Douglas said it also saved Kootenai County taxpayers the $10,000 it would have cost to go to trial.

In exchange for Stratton’s guilty plea, the prosecutor’s office has agreed not to file criminal charges against Stratton’s wife.

Rowena J. Stratton’s name had appeared as endorsements on some of the checks the victims had given to her husband.

Douglas said he also will ask for more than $80,000 in restitution for about 40 of Stratton’s victims.

However, Douglas would not comment on whether Stratton had money to pay the victims.

Stratton is being represented by the public defender’s office, indicating he has no money.

The Idaho attorney general’s office won a civil award of $189,390 against Stratton for his victims in January. However, even then the attorney general’s office conceded the man owns virtually nothing.

Still, Ryan said Stratton does intend to pay back the victims. He wants to work, set aside enough money to live on and then pay them back one day at a time.

However, “I’d like to see him spend a lot of time in jail,” Janet Allen said.

Stratton, who is being held at the Kootenai County Jail, is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 22. He faces a maximum of 14 years in prison for each charge.

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MEMO: Idaho headline: Contractor accused by dozens pleads guilty