Pierce County yard-work scammer stole over $200K. He’s now off to prison
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- A man was sentenced to 15 years in prison for repeated thefts from elderly victims.
- Timothy Baugh stole over $200K by offering yard work, then continually demanding payments.
- The court rejected a drug-offender sentencing alternative.
A Pierce County man who has spent years swindling vulnerable adults out of hundreds of thousands of dollars by offering to do work on their properties and then repeatedly convincing them to fork over more cash was sentenced Friday to 15 years in prison.
At least three adults were caught up in Timothy Roosevelt Baugh’s latest schemes, which netted him more than $200,000, according to court records. But people have been tricked by him before. He was convicted of theft in 2018 and 2021 for similar scams in Tacoma and Lakewood.
Those previous crimes landed Baugh in jail and prison for a few years. In his latest cases, Pierce County Superior Court Judge Pro Tempore James Orlando gave Baugh a punishment beyond the standard range, sentencing him to two 90-month prison terms in separate cases, with the terms served consecutively rather than at the same time.
Baugh, 58, pleaded guilty in April in the two cases, admitting in one to first-degree theft from a vulnerable adult and failure to obtain a business license. In the second case, he pleaded guilty to three counts of first-degree theft from a vulnerable adult and first-degree theft.
Several of the charges included an aggravating factor that it was a major economic offense. That allowed prosecutors to argue that Baugh’s sentence should go beyond the standard range, which was about six-and-a-half to eight-and-a-half years in prison.
Baugh’s attorney from the Department of Assigned Counsel asked that he be given a drug-offender sentencing alternative (DOSA), which could have reduced his prison time to about three years, eight months followed by a term of community custody with conditions including treatment for substance use and relapse prevention.
Baugh, who served in the U.S. Army between 1985 and 1986, has struggled with use of cocaine throughout his life, according to the defense’s sentencing memorandum, and he’s struggled with addiction to alcohol and methamphetamines.
“Mr. Baugh humbly comes before this Court asking for a final opportunity at real treatment for his addiction,” attorney Megan Dunn wrote in the memorandum. “He is filled with deep regret and is at a different crossroad than he has been at before. He respectfully asks this Court to show him mercy.”
Baugh’s criminal history dates back to 1989 and includes 46 misdemeanor convictions, 10 of which were for theft, and 20 felony convictions, according to prosecutors.
Deputy prosecuting attorney Sven Nelson argued against the sentencing alternative, writing in his sentencing memorandum that Baugh failed drug court in Pierce County in 2005 and was given a DOSA in 2007.
“... The defendant has gone on to victimize numerous elders in the same scheme that he was doing prior to his DOSA,” Nelson wrote. “Incarceration appears to be the only effective means of protecting the elderly and other vulnerable members of the public from the defendant.”
One of the recent scams began when Baugh knocked on the door of a 101-year-old woman’s home in Lakewood and told her partner, a 75-year-old man, that his yard was overgrown. The man thought it would be a nice gift to his partner to have it cleaned up and agreed to have Baugh do some yard work.
Baugh said he needed tools and a truck to do the job, so they went to an ATM where the man withdrew $500 for Baugh.
Soon Baugh was stopping by nearly every day to ask for more money. Between December 2023 and Jan. 14, 2024, according to Pierce County Superior Court records, Baugh was paid $68,000 for work he never completed.
In the second case, in the Tacoma area, Baugh stole more than $36,000 from a 71-year-old woman between 2022 and 2024 by offering to do yard work and then charging her for his motel stays, for gas and for auto parts. According to prosecutors, Baugh mowed her lawn a few times and once started to clean her gutters.
A 77-year-old man in Parkland lost the most to Baugh — more than $100,000, according to prosecutors. After Baugh was given $3,000 to haul some junk vehicles from the man’s property in 2022, Baugh returned 34 times to take the man to an ATM to get more money. According to prosecutors, more than $31,000 was withdrawn and given to Baugh, and the rest of the money was given to him through checks and Western Union transactions.
Most of the victims were experiencing cognitive decline, according to court records. In the Lakewood case, bank employees became suspicious and filed a complaint with Adult Protective Services, which led to investigations into Baugh.
