Property owners say Michigan hasn’t kept up with contractor fraud

BELLAIRE — Kelly Newell sat in the front row of an Antrim County courtroom, gripping a folder of notes, police records, complaints and financial documents going back years.

At the front of the courtroom, Daniel James Siefka, 36, of Manistee, was about to be sentenced on two misdemeanor charges. Newell and her husband said they paid Siefka in 2021 to build amenities for a wedding venue on their property, but he never did any work.

Before that January 2026 day Siefka finally faced punishment in Newell’s case, he had kept working after repeatedly being sued by several other property owners and charged in multiple counties for similar activities.

“Dealing with him is nothing compared to dealing with the system,” Newell said. “And I mean nothing.”

In fact, a Northern Michigan Journalism Collaborative review of police complaints, court records, bankruptcy proceedings and state licensing board decisions show that Siefka and dozens of other contractors were allowed to keep working and accumulating complaints long after authorities had credible evidence of their deception.

By the time they’re summoned to a state disciplinary hearing, “a lot of those people should not be in business,” said Holland attorney Gregory McCoy, who once represented another of Siefka’s clients.

Michigan’s Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs disciplined 58 individual builders or construction companies last year, up from 37 in 2020. A review of state records, including enforcement actions and disciplinary reports, revealed several of the state’s licensed builders with multiple complaints were allowed to keep working for years before losing their license.

Most of the state’s approximately 58,000 building contractors never get crosswise with state regulators and a leading trade association said they won’t tolerate it.

Associated Builders and Contractors of Michigan “and our members condemn fraud no matter the scope,” said Ron Kendall, president. “A little fraud is still fraud and (we) don’t support cutting corners, especially at the expense of hardworking people across Michigan.”

Kendall said the association offers members a variety of services to make sure the trades are held to high standards. He said that, to his knowledge, LARA has not treated fraud with leniency and works to protect people from scammers.

Attorneys and property owners, however, say investigations can last months but often take much longer, that hearings before administrative law judges can face delay and builders can appeal a revoked or suspended license and keep working while their appeal is pending.

State regulators did answer multiple calls and emails requesting comment on this story by deadline, but agreed with state auditors who in 2021 said almost all complaints filed with the agency were not investigated in a timely way. A follow-up audit in 2024 found the agency had gotten better at seeking deadline extensions.

Prosecutors say contractors often face no jail time because fraud is difficult to prosecute, labor-intensive especially in rural counties with small staffs and heavy caseloads. Even when there’s a plea or a guilty verdict, property owners can still feel angry and unsatisfied.

Leelanau County Prosecutor Joe Hubbell put it bluntly: “When we have contractor fraud claims, we often go to the victim and say, ‘Do you want blood or do you want money?’”

McCoy said property owners can protect themselves by finding a contractor through word-of-mouth instead of social media or the internet. They should check LARA’s database for contractors’ license status, seek references and hire people with experience. They should also specify in the contract that the quality of work must be not just up to code but also consistent with houses in the area.

Property owners should also push back on excuses that raise suspicions. “Locking in” lumber prices, for example, isn’t a thing, he said.

“People are not vetting the way they were before and there’s been a surge in these fraud cases,” McCoy, whose caseload has gone up tenfold since the coronavirus pandemic, said. “As we’ve started to rely more on the internet, it’s easier for people to get work and then to just steal.”

‘Other people who got hurt went by the wayside’

Court and state records show the Newells’ loss isn’t an isolated case.

In 2023, records show, a Georgia couple, Johannes and Hien Ploeg, signed a $1.7 million contract with Grand Rapids builder David Jenkins, 23, and his company, Jenkins Estates, for a 3,100-square-foot home. The Ploegs confirmed Jenkins was licensed and wired a $235,000 down payment.

That spring, court records show, Jenkins told the couple he needed another large payment before breaking ground. He said their choice of custom finishes meant all the materials had to be ordered at once to avoid color variations.

Court records show Jenkins ordered lumber but never paid for it, hired excavators, framers and masons, but didn’t pay them what they were owed, and was already being investigated by Grand Rapids police for similar activities there.

LARA records show no disciplinary action reports against Jenkins and Johannes Ploeg said he didn’t file a complaint with the department.

“In this particular case with Mr. Jenkins, he’d done this so many times with so many people it never caught up with him because the economics weren’t there,” Johannes Ploeg said. “When it hit us, I’m an attorney so I don’t need to hire an attorney, so that’s what stopped him.”

Kent County court records show no criminal charges against Jenkins, but he was a defendant in six civil suits filed there by clients, suppliers, lenders or subcontractors, one of which was filed about the same time he worked for the Ploegs, the others filed shortly after.

Jenkins faced felony charges in Leelanau County of false pretenses of $100,000 or more and of violating the Builders Trust Fund Act, a 1931 law requiring contractors to hold project funds in a dedicated account to pay subcontractors and suppliers.

“The pandemic caught a lot of contractors off guard and caused them to … try to build their way out of horrible business decisions,” said Jenkins’ Grand Rapids attorney, Matthew Borgula, who emphasized he was commenting generally, not specifically about Jenkins’ case.

In his plea agreement, court records show, Jenkins consented to pay $348,000 in restitution and remove a lien from the Ploeg’s home. In exchange, the prosecutor agreed to drop the false pretenses charge and have a judge hold his 30-day jail sentence in abeyance.

When the lien wasn’t removed in the time allotted, however, the prosecutor called Jenkins back to court and in December 2025 Jenkins voluntarily surrendered and served two weeks in jail.

“(The Ploegs) were frankly lucky they were first in line so they could claim against him,” said Hubbell, the Leelanau County prosecutor. “Other people who got hurt went by the wayside because he didn’t have any money left.”

In another example, Jerold Saeman, 40, of Hastings, the owner of Bay to Bay Building Concepts and the recipient of multiple LARA complaints, is accused of taking deposits from dozens of homeowners across the state, including in Presque Isle County, and either not starting work or leaving it unfinished.

The Presque Isle job was to repair a home damaged during a 2022 hailstorm, which, according to state regulators, Bay to Bay bid at $13,700 for roof work and $20,000 for a shed and siding.

By then, Saeman and Bay to Bay had been reported to LARA in 2020 for code violations on other jobs, fined by the department and ordered to pay restitution.

The homeowners submitted the bid to their insurance company and an agent determined the work should cost about $18,600, LARA records show. Bay to Bay agreed and the insurance company sent payment directly to the builder.

Not only was the work not completed, disciplinary hearing records show, Bay to Bay tried to charge more. When the homeowners refused to pay, LARA records show Saeman threatened to turn the issue over to a bill collector.

A common pattern 

Attorney McCoy literally wrote the book on contractor disputes, co-authoring the construction chapter in a top legal reference, “Damages and Remedies in Michigan.” He said problems often follow familiar patterns.

Some offenders are what he called “classic fly-by-night” operators adept at delay-and-deny tactics as they rack up complaints, no-show their LARA enforcement hearings, file bankruptcy, leave the state and set up shop somewhere else.

Siefka, for example, moved his family to Colorado, where he bid at least one job and competed in occasional golf tournaments until November 2023, when he was arrested by Colorado law enforcement and returned to Michigan on open warrants.

“There’s a lot of people that were wanting to get you, buddy,” a Glenwood Springs officer wearing a body camera told Siefka during the arrest. “Michigan has been blowing my phone up.”

“I know,” Siefka replied.

When LARA suspended Saeman’s builder’s license in 2023, he went to Niobrara County, Wyoming, where, according to an affidavit by a special agent with the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation, Bay to Bay received more than $150,000 from 11 homeowners for work that was never completed.

Saeman was charged in Wyoming with felony theft, court records show, and a plea agreement was apparently in place but has been slowed by Saeman’s bankruptcy filing. A February sentencing hearing was rescheduled.

Other contractor disputes, McCoy said, start off pretty standard, then go off the rails.

A property owner, eager for a new home, a remodel or storm damage repair hires a builder — perhaps someone they found on the internet — signs a contract and pays money upfront, then weeks or months pass with no sign of work.

The builder offers excuses, then goes silent, and property owners out thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars call police, county prosecutors and the state attorney general’s office, expecting or at least hoping to get their money back.

Often, that’s not what happens.

“My experience has been that the police and sheriffs and law enforcement tend to want to punt on these kinds of cases,” McCoy said. “Anything that they can call a civil case, they will.”

Antrim County Prosecutor Wilson Brott, whose office prosecuted Siefka, said that’s because contractor cases take hours of parsing complex financial records. To get a conviction, prosecutors must prove the person set out to rip someone off, not that they just took on too much work.

‘He ghosted us’

The Newells, who live in Gaylord, used state records to confirm Siefka was licensed before hiring him and his company, Legacy Building Group, in 2021 for their wedding venue project. Siefka pressed them for a quick $40,000 to “lock in” lumber prices.

After they wired him the money, Kelly Newell said he gave one excuse after another for why no work was being done, then stopped communicating at all.

“He ghosted us,” Newell said. “And I started digging into what I could do about it. That was more than five years ago.”

Siefka wasn’t cited by LARA until 2025, though Newell said complaints were filed years earlier. Complaints filed with the department can be obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. Otherwise, they aren’t publicly disclosed until discipline is handed out.

Unbeknownst to the Newells, Siefka also operated Beyond the Call Construction. When they hired him, court records show, he or one or another of his companies had already been sued by lumber companies, a roofing company, two financial services companies and several property owners.

Siefka was investigated by the Michigan State Police in 2022, prosecuted in Muskegon County for activities dating to 2023, charged in Antrim County in 2025 with felony fraud and is facing an ongoing criminal enterprise case in Mason County for activities dating to 2018, according to court records.

“I hope that the victims in this case and others that I’m trying to resolve can forgive me and that they will all lead very prosperous lives from here on out,” Siefka told the court at his sentencing hearing.

As part of a plea agreement, Siefka paid thousands in restitution to Newell in exchange for two felony charges being reduced to misdemeanors. He received a year in jail on each charge, served concurrently.

Newell, in her victim’s impact statement, had pressed for a consecutive sentence — meaning Siefka would have served two years, instead of one — and expressed frustration over a state statute that didn’t allow for that.

Newell said she’s wiser about how contractors commit fraud, but has lost faith in the government’s ability to protect property owners.

“It was clear that no civil suit, no complaint, no report to any governing board, nothing had stopped him,” she said. “As long as it kept working and he could stay beyond the law’s reach, he would keep doing it.”

This reporting is made possible by the Northern Michigan Journalism Collaborative, led by Bridge Michigan and Interlochen Public Radio, and funded by Press Forward Northern Michigan.