Contractor sentenced for defrauding Tarrant County homeowners out of more than $300,000

FORT WORTH, Texas - A contractor was sentenced to 15 years in prison for bilking Tarrant County homeowners out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Randy Wayne Sprinkle, 54, pleaded guilty to theft of property and misapplication of funds.

The cases involved never-completed remodeling projects for more than a dozen victims, many of whom were elderly, over the past six years.

It was a long three-year battle for Susan Elder with Sprinkle as her contractor. She met him in 2014.

“This door, I paid Randy $9,000 to replace,” Elder said. “This is 30 years old. This has not been replaced.”

Elder says she initially hired Sprinkle to install new floors in the basement of her Fort Worth home. Then, a fire destroyed her second floor and he offered to do that repair work as well. She and her husband paid Sprinkle a combined $247,000 from their own money and insurance money.

“He agreed, but then he'd just disappear,” Elder said. “I said ‘Where is our money?’ He would just look down. No answer. He would just look down.”

So Elder reached out for help.

Assistant District Attorney Lori Varnell says Sprinkle had been hired by more than a dozen people, but he either failed to complete the work or provided substandard repairs.

“These people could not even put words to the level of frustration, anger and hurt that they had,” she said.

Varnell says Sprinkle didn’t even have a license to do many of the things he was hired to do, like plumbing, HVAC or electrical repairs.

Varnell prosecuted Sprinkle for crimes occurring between 2013 and 2017. On Wednesday, the 54-year-old was sentenced to 15 years in prison for theft of property and misapplication of fiduciary funds.

Elder says the sentence won’t fully erase the damage that’s been done.

“I would like to have my money back, but I know that’s not going to happen because they say he doesn’t have any money,” she said.

Varnell says these may not be Sprinkle’s only charges. At one point, he was out on bond and convinced an elderly man to invest $900,000 into six different businesses.

Sprinkle has been ordered to pay $854,000 in restitution after he serves his sentence.