TV repairman Gardetto headed to prison
A television repairman who repeatedly ripped off consumers in the Milwaukee area will be spending the next two years in jail.
James D. Gardetto, 47, was sentenced Monday to two years of initial confinement in a Wisconsin state prison, three years of extended supervision and three years of probation for engaging in unfair trade practices, according to Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen’s office.
Gardetto was convicted in August of six charges of unfair trade practices as well as bail jumping and obstructing a police officer by lying.
According to a criminal complaint:
In the summer of 2011, Gardetto pretended to fix a television owned by customers in Pewaukee. He cashed the check for the work, but when the customers realized the item wasn’t repaired, he returned and demanded more money to fix the problem.
With other customers in North Prairie, he demanded a down payment for doing repairs. When he later decided their TV wasn’t worth repairing, he would only give a partial refund.
Gardetto, formerly of South Milwaukee, also lied about his business affiliation and locations, claiming to be with a business that did not exist. That was a violation of an agreement Gardetto entered into with the state after being convicted of similar fraud in 2003.
“Among other things, the order requires that Gardetto refrain from engaging in specific unfair trade practices, such as refusing to return a consumer’s property and attempting to enforce unconscionable contract clauses,” Van Hollen’s office said in a news release Tuesday. “The Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection discovered that Gardetto violated these orders on multiple occasions. In addition to these violations, Gardetto did not disclose his business location and lied to consumers in order to obtain their money and their property, making it impossible for the consumers to get their property back.”
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