Anne Griffin’s hopelessness has been transformed to hope months after she was sure she’d never see the $17,500 she prepaid Timothy Burchett for home repairs in the wake of the September 23 storm that tore the roof off of the hospital and ravaged parts of Sallisaw When Anne Griffin received a $5,000 check in mid-December as partial reimbursement for her prepayment, the soft-spoken 81-year-old great-grandmother interpreted the unexpected windfall as a Christmas miracle.

“I’ve got some money back now, and to be perfectly honest, I wasn’t sure I’d ever get any,” Griffin said during the yuletide season. “It’s more than I thought would happen.”

Then, on December 31, a felony arrest warrant was issued for Burchett, charging him with home repair fraud and exploitation of an elderly person or disabled adult by deception or intimidation. He was arrested on January 20, and is scheduled to appear in Sequoyah County District Court on the March 4 felony disposition docket before Judge Kyle Waters.

“I’m very proud of the police department and DA’s office,” Griffin said Thursday. “It is wonderful to see the system work, and it did indeed work.”

The current charges are the latest in Burchett’s history with law enforcement. According to state court records, in the 1990s, Burchett was charged in the western Oklahoma counties of Caddo, Cotton, Greer, Kiowa and Oklahoma for felony home repair fraud, obtaining money by false pretense, confidence game, and obtaining cash and/or merchandise by bogus check. During the same time period, Burchett was also listed as the defendant in multiple civil and small claims court action in Comanche and Garfield counties.

When she contacted police in October, Griffin, a decorated veteran of Operation Desert Storm who has lived in Sallisaw for the past five years, said she’s been robbed of her dignity and her self-confidence.

“It was my own fault. I was totally stupid,” Griffin admitted more than a month after Burchett is said to have approached her at home assuring her he would effect repairs to her home.

“Why was I so stupid?,” she asked rhetorically, scolding herself aloud. “How could I have let this man just keep … I gave him more checks and more checks without [him] ever doing a single thing?”

But even as it was happening, Griffin remained hopeful, refusing to condemn the man who promised he would make her home whole again.

“They take your money, and that’s bad enough. But they take your confidence, they take your dignity, they take …” Near tears, Griffin’s voice trailed off.

“Money is money, I’m not downplaying how much the money … but it’s the rest of it, it’s your confidence in yourself. From now on, can I make a decision without thinking … Robbing you of your self-confidence, your dignity,” her thoughts were disjointed as she relived the betrayal she endured.

Promises, promises In hindsight, Griffin admitted there were numerous warning signs she dismissed in favor of trust, as well as an elaborate, heart-rending story that subjugated her better judgment.

Then when Griffin was at her wit’s end and had had enough, she says Burchett promised he would give her a full refund.

But she was skeptical. And when police informed Griffin of Burchett’s history of similar charges in western Oklahoma, her hope dissolved.

That’s when she says Burchett’s promise to refund her money quickly changed. Instead of refunding her money, Burchett said he had retained legal counsel, and that his attorney would send her a check.

By November, a text to Griffin from Burchett promised “we will come to some conclusion this week, as I want it handled before the holidays. The lawyer will be in touch this week. I never defrauded you.”

“First he said, ‘I’ll give you a full refund. I’m an honest man’,” Griffin said. But when she wanted to know when she would receive that full refund, Burchett’s response of “soon” became “well, I’ve got an attorney.”

But, according to Oklahoma statutes, there’s a fine line between criminal and civil liability in alleged fraud cases.

When Griffin filed a report with the police, she was initially told in was a civil offense.

But Sallisaw police, upon further scrutiny, reassessed the case and forwarded the investigation to the Sequoyah County District Attorney’s Office, which determined that criminal charges were appropriate.

Sounding a warning While justice and reimbursement are part of the equation, Griffin also wants to sound the clarion to warn others about fraudulent practices.

“Not necessarily the same person, but this has been going on, and it’s fairly major in the area and especially like during the storm, that they would just show up,” she says. “This guy showed up at my front door because I had a dent in my gutters where a limb had fallen, and he knocked on my door.”

Griffin says she’s still going to have to have a reputable repairman fix her roof.

“I just thought, something needs to be out there warning people,” she said of her decision to tell her story.

Meanwhile, she observes that the spring storm season is only months away, and reiterates her desire to warn others not to fall victim to those who seek to take advantage of a stressful situation, preying on the unsuspecting, the trusting and those easily deceived.

“We’ve got another storm season coming up, and from what the police tell me, this is rampant when we have storms,” Griffin says. “Guys just go around and knock on doors.”