BY DAN HILDEBRAN
General manager
A Lawtey man sentenced to probation earlier this year was sent to the Department of Corrections for five years after he tested positive for cocaine and was accused of fraud in Union County.
In April, Joseph Stefan Wheeler pleaded to defrauding Jackson Building Supply of $18,355 and an individual of $37,200.
Before being sentenced to five years’ probation, the defendant assured Judge James Colaw that he could and would pay restitution to the victims. The judge responded that without such assurances, the 50-year-old would be spending the 60 months behind bars rather than on probation.
In September, a probation officer reported that Wheeler violated his probation by testing positive for cocaine.
He was also arrested in Union County twice for fraud. In one case, he is accused of taking $19,000 from an out-of-state couple to replace a metal roof on a Raiford building and failing to perform the work. In the second, a Lake Butler couple told deputies they wrote Wheeler a $4,500 check for materials on a home repair. However, the materials were never delivered to the work site, and the defendant cashed the check at Florida Credit Union.
