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Case a tangle of home fraud and murder
By RYAN DAVIS, Times Staff Writer NEW PORT RICHEY -- Police who arrested a contractor Wednesday in a defrauding-a-customer case did not set out to catch a crook. They were hunting a killer. It was Simon Clarke, they said, who thought he had discovered a crook. Late last year, he was helping a friend by keeping an eye on the construction of the friend's mansion near the Gulf of Mexico. Clarke came to believe that New Port Richey contractor Denise Sanders was overcharging for incomplete work, police said. Clarke, they said, set up a meeting with Sanders for 2 p.m. Nov. 28 at the new house. That night, Clarke's friends found the Sarasota man beaten to death inside the wood frame of the 5,337-square-foot home on Sanctuary Drive. The murder remains unsolved. But on Thursday, New Port Richey police arrested Sanders and said that she bilked Clarke's friend out of more than $65,000 and was trying to squeeze another $36,000 from him. Sanders owns Design and Build with Elegance and Superior Lath and Stucco, both at 6445 Santee Court, and lives at 10625 Hilltop Drive. She was booked into county jail in Land O'Lakes, where she was held Thursday in lieu of $5,000 bail. Her arrest stems from the homicide investigation into Clarke's death, said Capt. Darryl Garman of the New Port Richey police. The crime scene was an unfinished six-bedroom house with a six-car garage on a wooded 15-acre plot near the Sea Forest subdivision. That's where David Pollard was building his house. Pollard lives in England and was a friend and business associate of Clarke's. In January 2001, Pollard hired Sanders, 35, as the general contractor to build the home. Through November, he had paid her a total of just more than $315,000. About then, Pollard started to wonder if all the money was being spent properly, police said. A civil engineer Pollard hired to check out the work estimated that $315,000 had paid for $120,000 worth of construction, police said. So Pollard turned to 41-year-old Clarke, police said. Clarke moved from England seven years ago with his wife and boys, who were 16 and 11 when he was killed. He owned Universal Vacations Realty, a property sales business, and frequently traveled to New Port Richey, his wife told the Times on Thursday. He was a natural fit for the job of investigating the construction. "Unfortunately," said his wife, Caroline. Clarke sought out the subcontractors doing the work for Sanders. "He started asking questions," said Sgt. Scott Baker of New Port Richey. "Simon (Clarke) talked to some subcontractors and found things weren't getting done and things weren't adding up." Less than two weeks later, Clarke was dead. Baker said there could be some connection between Clarke's detective work and his death, but he would not elaborate. On Nov. 28, Clarke met with Sanders "to discuss what direction they were going to go" with the house construction, Baker said. Baker said Sanders had collected $65,623.88 for electrical work not completed, carpentry fraudulently charged, heating and air conditioning not completed and other unfinished work. She was requesting $36,588.04 from Pollard for plumbing work never done, lumber never ordered and other undone work, Baker said. Baker added that he suspects Pollard might have overpaid for more work, but police had enough evidence to arrest Sanders, so they acted Wednesday.
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From today's Pasco Times |
