A contractor is facing charges for reportedly ripping off customers who now tell Channel 11 they’re out thousands of dollars.
John Mozdzien said he hired contractor Bernie Bowman to build his family a new deck at his home in Ross Township earlier this year, but he did very little work.
“He worked about eight hours in total those three times and left us with this and a whole Rolodex of excuses,” he said.
Mozdzien said he paid the contractor more than $10,000 for a deposit and part of a payment, and he only tore up the decking boards. Then he said Bowman just stopped showing up.
“It’s unfortunate,” Mozdzien said. “It was excuse after excuse after excuse.”
Mozdzien filed a police report against the contractor. According to the criminal complaint, detectives found out Bowman’s contractor’s license expired in February of this year and his insurance company dropped him in December of 2024. But he was still taking jobs.
Bowman’s now facing charges for fraud and theft.
“Irate,” Mozdzien said. “Irate.”
Scott Moore also said he hired Bowman to put a fence in his yard in Chartiers Township a few years ago. He claims he was out $1,700 before a shovel ever went into the ground.
“The guy is a professional criminal, and that’s what he does. He takes a lot of money,” Moore said. “He goes from one victim to the next victim and takes their money and he suffers nothing for it.”
Channel 11 called Bowman for his side of the story. He told Channel 11′s Antoinette DelBel he didn’t know about the charges against him and denies deceiving anyone, including Moore.
“After that fence was ordered, he decided he wanted a taller fence,” Bowman said. “When I told him there would be an additional cost for the other fencing, he refused and declined to do that. I told him there would be no way. We could either install the fence he ordered, and he did not want to do that.”
Bowman didn’t want to comment on the job he never finished for Mozdzien.
The Navy vet, who gives back through his organization, Veterans First, said he’s just trying to stay positive.
“The money is one thing,” Mozdzien said. “Yes, I’m worried about the money, of course, but I want this gentleman to be behind bars, so he doesn’t continue doing this.”
Detectives in the criminal complaint said that Bowman deceived others from Washington, Somerset and Allegheny counties and pleaded guilty at least twice starting back in 2010.
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