Pierce County man who took $73K for promised yard work now charged with 7 counts of theft
A Lakewood man has been hit with more theft charges after prosecutors contend he scammed two different people out of $73,000 on the pretense of performing yard work for two years.
Prosecutors charged Timothy Roosevelt Baugh, 58, with four counts of first-degree theft and three counts of first-degree theft from a vulnerable adult, court records show.
Baugh is scheduled to appear for a hearing in Pierce County Superior Court on Dec. 18.
This is not a first for Baugh, who was charged on July 17 with first-degree theft from a vulnerable adult, first-degree theft and failure to obtain a business license after he allegedly scammed a 75-year-old man with dementia out of thousands of dollars in 2023. He said he would perform landscaping work that allegedly was never done, according to charging documents.
A plea of not guilty was entered on Baugh’s behalf during his arraignment on July 26 at the Pierce County Superior Court. His bail was set at $150,000, court records show. Baugh posted bond on Sept. 11 and has been released on a home-monitoring device.
The News Tribune’s efforts to reach Baugh and his attorney were unsuccessful.
Charging details
An investigation into Baugh’s alleged schemes began on July 29 when a South Credit Union fraud investigator told the Tacoma Police Department about a possible elder-abuse situation. A 71-year-old woman had paid Baugh over $36,000 for some yard work during the course of two years, according to charging documents.
Investigators learned that Baugh allegedly performed minimal work, such as mowing her lawn a couple times and starting to clean out the gutters but never finishing, prosecutors wrote.
The woman hired Baugh in 2022 after he approached her while she was doing yard work and he offered to help, prosecutors wrote. The woman told Baugh her husband had died and that she needed help with the yard. She gave him $1,000 to trim some trees, which he did.
In one of the charges, Baugh asked for $500 after he told the woman that he caught something contagious and had to move into a Fife motel, documents show. Baugh claimed that he would pay her back, and so the woman gave him the money. She told investigators she kept giving into his requests in the hopes that someday he would pay her back.
Baugh would allegedly ask the woman for money to pay for things such as gas, car repairs and additional hotel stays. The woman would put the charges for the hotel reservations on her credit card and and also withdraw cash for him. At one point, she wrote a check for his wife. The woman kept a running account of the charges on a handwritten ledger, prosecutors wrote.
Prosecutors wrote the woman paid Baugh about $36,881. Baugh did write her a $12,500 check, but that money came from the account of another alleged victim, a 77-year-old Parkland man. After learning of that, an investigation began into Baugh’s alleged scams against the Parkland man.
Investigators met with the 77-year-old man who has lived alone since his wife died. Prosecutors wrote the man reportedly has health and capacity issues. He believed that he met Baugh a year earlier, but Western Union documents showed he sent him money starting in February 2022, prosecutors wrote. The man said Baugh offered his landscaping services when he knocked on his door and offered to haul off some junk.
The man gave Baugh $3,000 in cash, and he hauled away a few items that first day. Baugh allegedly would often make up excuses for why he needed money from the man, documents show. In one instance, Baugh went to Florida and allegedly needed money because his flights got mixed up.
Court records show that through wire transfers, checks and ATM withdrawals, Baugh allegedly took over $49,000 from the victim. The man told investigators that Baugh only did about two days work since 2022.
Baugh has been convicted for similar crimes over several years. In December 2021, he pleaded guilty to second-degree theft for tricking a 75-year-old Tacoma man out of $13,000 for landscaping work that was never completed, according to court records.
Prosecutors wrote the investigation is ongoing and additional charges might be filed against Baugh.
