Numerous property owners in Tennessee and North Carolina are seeking civil awards from a Sevier County contractor who is alleged to have duped the property owners out of thousands of dollars.
Mike Moncrief of Sevierville is one of at least 12 people who have fallen victim to Kenneth “Rocky” Davis. Moncrief alleges that Davis defrauded him of $6,470. Since he was scammed, Moncrief has discovered he was just one of many who have sued or are in the process of suing Davis whose background is questionable. Moncrief has since discovered that Davis had been in Jail on more than one occasion in North Carolina and his claims of military service were false as were his claims of having an engineering degree from Clemson University.
Moncrief met Davis through an employee in December, 2011. The employee was aware that Moncrief was searching for a golfing partner. She referred Moncrief to Davis, and the pair began golfing occasionally. Their golf outings came to an end when Moncrief suffered a knee injury, but the two remained in contact with one another.
In June, 2012, Davis told Moncrief he needed $4,575 to buy mulch for a landscaping job. He promised to pay back the loan within two months. Davis convinced Moncrief to give him an additional $1,995 to buy into a discounted gift card purchase that would be paid back within 12 months. After two months Davis failed to repay Moncrief who made numerous attempts to contact Davis. His phone calls and text messages went unanswered. Moncrief then began looking into Davis’s background.
Moncrief discovered Davis had put $8,000 in charges on the employee's credit card of which $5,000 was used to buy gift cards.
According to Moncrief, he made several attempts to contact Davis in an attempt to collect the money owed. Davis reportedly lied about his whereabouts at any given time and began a cat and mouse game to avoid Moncrief. On one occasion, Moncrief sent a text to Davis in December of 2012 telling him he expected to be paid what he was owed. Davis texted back “I am in Charlotte and just leaving church.”
Davis was unaware that Moncrief had a friend who lived in Wears Valley. This acquaintance reportedly saw Davis in his Corvette at the home of a neighbor at the precise time he told Moncrief he was in Charlotte. When confronted with this information Davis texted “I know where I’m at.” Davis maintained he was in Charlotte and wasn’t in his Corvette.
“It may seem like a little thing to lie about being out of town,” said Moncrief. “But, this is what he does to avoid facing his victims. It’s an effective delay technique that he has used for many years.”
Davis began sending vague texts that he passed off as accidental. Moncrief believes these texts were sent as a ruse to mislead his victims. One text stated “the patent is done and Walmart is just 1 of 4 very interested.” Davis continued texting as if it were a two way conversation stating “Yes, and it has been a long journey to get to this stage.” The next text message read “Enough now to buy that course or build one.” Finally, Davis texted “Lol, my brother just texted and said he was receiving my texts. That was weird.’
Moncrief believes Davis was attempting to deceive himself and others and possibly rein them in for another scam. In the most outrageous of those texts, Davis alluded to chemotherapy as if he were attempting to garner sympathy from his victims. On December 11, just two days after the prior texts, Davis sent a text that read “Well, actually, the having to get up at 3 a.m. and driving to do chemo is the worst part, 3 hours away.” That text was followed up almost immediately by another that read “Thank you, love you too. For about two months now, very rough thing to go through.”
Moncrief contacted Detective Lynn Green of the McDowell County Sheriff’s Department in North Carolina. According to Green, Davis has a long criminal history in the state. Green had personally arrested Davis for “theft under false pretenses.” According to Green, Davis had received monies without the intent to repay or provide comparable value in services or materials. The case was thrown out because the court had deemed the matter a civil case. Greene said Davis would send him similar texts while he was investigating the case against him.
Davis had told Moncrief that he had never been married and he had served in the U.S. Army and stationed at Fort Bragg. Moncrief found Davis’s ex-wife, Teresa Ann Davis, who told him her ex-husband had never served in the military.
Moncrief is just one of many that is seeking justice over business dealings with Davis.
Bob Bewley, a retired doctor from Nebo, North Carolina, hired Davis to build a log home. He was soon billed for numerous services that he later discovered were never completed. According to Bewley, Davis had materials delivered to the job site but never performed the work he was contracted for and the materials sat in the yard where they were damaged by the elements.
“He billed me for installing a septic tank, and it was never installed,” said Bewley. “A lot of the materials that he claimed were delivered to the property are missing. I was charged for those materials.”
Bewley said that the small amount of construction work performed by Davis was not up to codes and after two years of pursuing Davis to finish the job and complete the work he had been billed for, Bewley hired another contractor who finished the job. The missing materials and the fraudulent billed charges for work that was never completed prompted Bewley to file criminal charges with the district attorney’s office. Bewley estimates the missing materials and fraudulent charges cost him between $80,000-$100,000. Bewley filed a claim with the Fraudulent Builders Compensation Fund, a fund established for the sole purpose of reimbursing victims of fraudulent contractors. Bewley said he was one of five individuals filing claims after being defrauded by Davis. According to Bewley, he was reimbursed a small fraction of what he had lost by the fund.
Of all the victims of Davis, none suffered the financial losses comparable to the losses Mary Coloney and Linda Gooden experienced. Collectively, the two women, business partners in a cabin rental development project lost more than $1.2 million to Davis.
“Because of him we went bankrupt,” said Coloney. “We signed contracts with him in the spring of 2006 and he was supposed to have seven rentals cabins built with a few months. There were some things we had contracted with him to do. He never did those things and he pocketed the money.”
According to Coloney, Davis took numerous shortcuts and many of the materials he said he had purchased were later discovered to be missing. The two women were expecting to have the properties completed and producing income within a few months. After two years the properties were dried in and were smaller than the blueprints indicated they would be. After two years with the incomplete project producing no income, the two women declared bankruptcy. Coloney said large amounts of materials were missing and they had paid Davis for bills he submitted for work that had never been performed.
Davis frequently purchased materials from Twin Creek Log Homes. According to Catherine Webb, owner of the company, Davis frequently reported shortages in shipments and failed to pay for much of the materials. Twin Creek eventually recovered their money through the freight company.
Linda and Rob Lynn of Sevierville are one of several litigants seeking civil judgments against Davis in Sevier County Sessions Court. The Lynns had paid Davis $3,000 to repair a roof. The money was to be used to purchase materials. According to court documents, Davis allegedly purchased $300 of materials and had them delivered to the job site but he never returned. After several attempts to contact Davis in subsequent weeks, the Lynns contacted the police to file charges against Davis for theft. The investigator told the Lynns that Davis could not be arrested for theft because he had delivered some materials which would indicate intent to provide service. The matter was not criminal but civil. Repeated calls to Davis went unanswered. One afternoon, the couple finally managed to get Davis on the phone and ask for a refund. His response stunned the couple.
“We called him and told him if he wasn’t going to finish the roof he could refund our money,” said Ken Gunter. “He told us he was going on vacation with our money and refused to refund it to us.”
Craig Swain, credit manager of Haywood Builders Supply in Waynesville, NC, has sued Davis for materials he never paid for. According to Swain, for the first two years he dealt with Davis, he paid his bill. Soon, Davis began running up his credit to a whopping $90,000 at which time Swain put a hold on Davis’s account until he could pay his debt. Davis never paid his debt, and Swain was forced to take legal action. Swain made numerous attempts to have Davis served with legal papers, but constables were unsuccessful at locating the defendant because he had left the state. Swain learned that Davis had been arrested and was in the McDowell County Jail and attempted to have him served there.
“By the time they arrived at the jail to serve him, he had been bailed out and was gone,” said Swain. “He’s a sneaky little bastard.”
Davis attempted to declare bankruptcy over the matter, but his bankruptcy was dismissed by the court because of the fraudulent activities Davis used to accrue the debt.
Ken and Amy Gunter of River Bank Road in Pigeon Forge are suing Davis for unpaid rent in the amount of $30,000. According to Amy Gunter, Davis had agreed to rent their home for $1,000 a month. Davis reportedly agreed to perform home improvements in exchange for the rent. According to Gunter, he sent the couple invoices for work he claimed to have performed. They later discovered none of the work had been done and Davis had sublet the home and kept the rent for himself.
“He claimed he had installed an air conditioning unit, shutters and landscaping,” said Amy Gunter. “None of this work had been done. We found people living in our house who weren’t supposed to be there. They were renting rooms from him and he never paid us any rent.”
Davis had once held a general contractor’s license in North Carolina. His license was permanently revoked by the North Carolina Licensing Board after Davis had contracted to complete a two story home for Marty and Kathy Shearouse in Rutherfordton, N.C. According to a complaint filed by the Shearhouses in 2006, Davis completed 20 percent of the project then abandoned the job and never completed the structure.
A similar complaint filed in 2004 by Thomas Saxton alleges Davis provided an altered contractor’s license to make it appear he held a valid license. Davis was contracted by Sexton to build a log cabin for $30,000.
In the North Carolina Licensing Board for General Contractors Report for 2006, numerous contractors are listed as having had their licenses revoked for misconduct or other violations. Ken “Rocky” Davis DBA Mountain Log Homes is listed on page 13 as having his license revoked for “the unauthorized practice of general contracting.” A permanent injunction was obtained against Davis in Wake County Superior Court on April 12, 2006.
A consumer based web site, www.loghomereports.com, lists reviews of log home contractors. These reviews may be positive reviews or negative reviews. In an entry written in 2008, a reviewer known simply as Logjam states that Davis had been arrested on August 11, 2008.
Another post entered on the site on September 16, 2008 by Building in N.C. states “Davis stole a significant amount of money from us.” The poster alleges that Davis has about $1 million in claims against him in the bankruptcy hearings. Davis’s attorneys stated their client had only $7,700 in assets.
Davis’s legal problems go back as early as 1995. According to court documents obtained from the York County, South Carolina circuit court, Davis was arrested October 30, 1991 for grand larceny of no more than $200. His birthdate was listed as 9-23-66 which would make Davis 48 presently, although he represents his age as 42 on his Facebook page.
Though his license was revoked in North Carolina, Davis has had a website constructed advertising his landscaping services in Sevier County, TN.
While Davis has more than $1 million dollars in claims against him, court documents from Haywood County N.C. seem to indicate he kept none of the money he has been accused of scamming from his victims. A notice of foreclosure filed on August 7, 2008, indicates the home of Kenneth Davis and Teresa Ann Davis was foreclosed in the amount $194,440.
Davis is alleged to have fraudulently used the name of a local contractor to obtain work. Davis has distributed numerous brochures with the name Signature Landscape Group printed on them. A check of the Tennessee Certified Contractors website states that the company is owned by Scott Shults. According to the state website, Davis does not own the company. The address Davis uses on the bogus brochures is 3152 Parkway, Pigeon Forge, TN. A Google search revealed the address is that of a UPS Store. Many companies with questionable business practices frequently rent post office boxes so that they may use the word “suite” in their mailing address.
Scott Shults, the actual owner of Signature Landscape Group said that Davis is not affiliated with his business and he does not know him personally. According to Shults, Davis was awarded a contract to landscape a new restaurant in Sevierville by claiming he owned Signature Landscaping. Shults approached the owners of the property and advised them Davis is not associated with his business.
Currently, Davis is alleged to be working as a landscaper for Ripley’s Golf Course. Repeated calls to the popular attraction for Davis have received no response. Linda and Rob Lynn got their day in court on November 3, 2014. Davis was scheduled to appear to answer complaints against him initiated by the Lynn’s in the amount of $3,000. Davis failed to appear, and the Lynns were given a judgment of $2,940. Davis was given two weeks to make restitution to the Lynns. Thus far, no restitution has been made.
