Pittsburgh man paid over $270K to design, build home charged after never starting work, DA says

PITTSBURGH — A Pittsburgh man is facing charges after he was paid over $270,000 to design and build a new home in 2021 but never started the project, the District Attorney’s Office announced Wednesday.

According to the district attorney’s office, Page Thomas received a payment of $276,540 in November 2021 to design and construct a new home, but still hasn’t taken any action to advance the project. Allegedly, Thomas used the money for his personal benefit.

According to the criminal complaint, Thomas had “lied about every aspect of the failed project.” He claimed excavators were being scheduled to work, claimed his clients were “terminating for convenience” and offered to refund the payment but didn’t actually do so.

In January 2022, the clients paid Thomas an additional $10,352 for chairs, the complaint said. Thomas allegedly bought the wrong chairs, returned them and told the clients he would reimburse them, but never did.

The complaint said the contract was severed in August 2023. Thomas allegedly continued to cancel meetings with attorneys and constantly leaves for his home in Maryland every time he’s supposed to pay his clients back.

Court documents said Thomas showed fraudulent screenshots of his bank account balance, which he said showed the money still in his account. Bank records proved the screenshots were fake, and Thomas had increased his balances by $662,200. His true balance was $33.38.

Records also showed the money from the clients being deposited in November 2021. From there, Thomas made payments to himself from the account, which he then began using like a personal account to issue payments to things like Apple, Amazon, restaurants, donations, utilities, grocery stores, travel and more the complaint said.

When the account hit just under $1,000, Thomas paid $20,000 for a piece of land in the City of Pittsburgh. He told the seller that he wanted to buy it to expand his personal property, court documents said.

Thomas is charged with dealing in the proceeds of illegal activity, unlawful taking, receiving stolen property, theft by failure to make required disposition of funds, forgery, criminal use of a communication facility and unlawful use of computers.

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