Suspect blames cancer, crack addiction in fraud case

Stephen Curran

Monday, July 11, 2005 | 9:04 a.m.

An alleged con artist now behind bars facing a litany of charges told Henderson Police he bilked three small business owners out of more than $1,000 because he was dying of cancer and his daughter was addicted to crack cocaine, according to officers who arrested him.

Thomas Fico, 48, was booked on Thursday at the Clark County Detention Center after his June 28 arrest for allegedly demanding between $250 and $440 from people who operate small, home-based cleaning businesses.

Police said he told the victims that they were legally obligated to buy an insurance and bonding agreement.

When his alleged victims failed or refused to buy the insurance, Fico seized their personal property for payment, according to his arrest report.

In the report, Henderson Police Detective J. Lotito wrote that Fico met one of his alleged victims, Jacqueline L. Ormond, at a Starbucks on North Green Valley Parkway seemingly to hire her cleaning service to work at several buildings in the 100 block of Cassia Way near American Pacific Drive and North Gibson Road in Henderson.

When she paid him a week later, he gave her copies of two mistake-laden contracts and a business card bearing only his first name, but never showed up for a second meeting to provide her the agreement and receipt, according to the report.

A later investigation by the state Contractors Board found he was also wanted on more than $60,000 in warrants for 16 similar theft charges in 1998 and 2001, according ot the board's final report.

"The complainants stated the Fico never brought any materials to the job site and never showed up to do the contracted work (and) all calls in an attempt to contact Fico have gone unanswered," contractors board investigator Dennis Burgess wrote.

Ormond, who runs the First Impressions Cleaning Service from her home, then contacted the state Attorney General's office and Better Business Bureau and was told Fico's businesses -- MOR COR and Sunscape Landscaping -- were fake.

Once arrested, Fico said the June 17 meeting with Ormond was one in a string of scams over several months, police said. According to the report, Fico would scan local newspapers for advertisements for cleaning businesses, which he would then contact with an offer to clean the two nonexistent businesses.

But, before they could begin working, Fico told his seemingly prospective clients that he needed the fee up front to license and bond the contractors. He would then collect the money and disappear, police said.

The crimes, Fico allegedly told police, were an act of desperation.

"Thomas stated that he was doing this 'to survive,' " Lotito's wrote in the report. "He stated that he had cancer, his son went to prison, his wife died and his daughter was on crack."

Another of Fico's would-be victims, Roberta Boyd, agreed to hide at the building on Cassia and alert officers when he arrived but was late after blowing a tire, police said. Fico, who Lotito wrote tried to run from officers, was arrested after Ormond and a friend confronted him in the building's driveway later that morning.

Fico remained at the Clark County Detention Center on Friday facing eight counts of allegedly engaging in business without a contractor's license, five counts of obtaining money under false pretenses, three charges of embezzlement and two counts of unlawful acts of a contractor, jail records show.

Fico was also arrested on suspicion of possessing a stolen 2004 Chrysler Sebring, which police said had been reported stolen in September from Dollar Rent-a-Car in Las Vegas.