CHARLOTTE COUNTY, Fla. — A 25-year-old man is facing serious charges after deputies report he conned multiple people out of thousands. Ryan Wilt, 25, is accused of defrauding at least three different families in Charlotte County. 

“I never would’ve guessed he would’ve done this to anybody by looking at him,” Lana Finkel said.

Wilt is reported to have started his crime spree just months after Hurricane Ian. He’s accused of taking more than $25,000 from his victims. 

‘He was young and enthusiastic, so I was encouraged to help the guy out,” Julian Beverly said.

They are just two of the people Wilt scammed. Advertising himself as a licensed contractor, multiple families hired Wilt in January to do construction work. In at least two of the cases, the work is centered around pool cage repairs. 

“We needed repairs urgently because we literally bought the house, hadn’t even lived in it a day, and the hurricane hit us. We lost the whole backyard pretty much,” Finkel said.

She and her husband gave Wilt half the cost upfront to purchase materials. 

“He was going to replace everything, put an additional light in. He even showed us the pictures of how he’s going to make it happen,” she said.

Those pictures never became a reality. Finkel said Wilt postponed, gave excuses, and finally stopped talking to them altogether. The couple reported the theft to the sheriff’s office and posted a warning on Facebook. 

“My husband posted on Facebook pretty much saying stay away from the guy, he’s walking around, and there was his picture. [Wilt] got angry about it,” Finkel said. “He was calling us, threatening us on the phone. He said you want to start the war? I’ll start the war with you.”

The couple had to file a police report for their own safety.

Julian and Amanda Beverly said they experienced the same belligerent attitude from Wilt after they tried to get their money back. The couple explained the man did actually perform work for them. However, he found a way to take more money than he was owed. The report said Wilt told the couple his bank wouldn’t cash their check, so he needed another. 

“In a crunch, we wrote him another check at our bank that he cashed at the counter, but he never stopped payment or gave us back the other check,” Amanda Beverly said. “Then, when we contacted him to try to still make it right, he became belligerent. We decided to report it to CCSO and cut our losses at that moment.”

The Beverlys lost $2,000. A third victim lost five times that amount. The arrest report states a man in Port Charlotte was quoted $18,000 to have his pool cage torn down and rebuilt. He handed over $10,000 and never got it back.

In a long investigation, deputies found out Wilt was never a licensed contractor in Florida. He was arrested earlier this week and bonded out of jail shortly after.