Bulletin E-Edition:
Bend solar contractor charged in million-dollar theft case
Victims include homeowners, high-profile local businesses
By Nick Budnick / The Bulletin
Published: September 17. 2009 4:00AM PSTEric Wisehart
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SALEM — A Bend renewable-energy systems contractor who for years has been accused of shoddy work, unkept promises and worse was taken into custody Wednesday following his arraignment on 29 counts of theft, unlicensed construction work and racketeering.
Eric “Gabe” Wisehart, 38, was booked into the Deschutes County jail on $500,000 bail and was being held there Wednesday evening. He has not yet entered a plea, and his lawyer could not be reached for comment.
Deschutes County District Attorney Mike Dugan said, “This is a very large and (detailed) fraud, theft-type case that has probably in excess of $1 million of fraud. There are numerous, numerous victims not only inside Deschutes County but outside Deschutes County.”
Wisehart did business under the name New Path Renewables, Pac-Wind OR LLC and Solect Systems Inc. The indictment, which was issued Monday, describes a pattern of theft and theft by deception since 2004 committed against more than two-dozen customers. It expands upon documents filed in Deschutes County Circuit Court last year when detectives raided the house Wisehart shared with his wife, Sonia. His wife has not been indicted.
The documents accuse Wisehart of having repeatedly promised to install solar or wind-power equipment while collecting full or partial payment up front. Then, he frequently never completeed the job.
At times, he is accused of completing the job, only to return later to remove without permission equipment that he’d already installed.
Wisehart’s alleged victims include some well-known Central Oregon firms such as Pronghorn, Aspen Lakes Golf Course and Jeld-Wen, the developer of Brasada Ranch.
The list also includes people like Sandy Veeck, 68, who hired Wisehart in April 2006 to install solar panels on her east Bend home.
It took eight to 10 months and “a lot of harassment on my part” to get the panels installed, Veeck said, and then the work kept flunking inspection by the county. Finally, she hired another company that fixed the problems in a single day, she said.
She said she is out $12,000 and likened Wisehart’s business pattern to a “pyramid” scheme in which later customers’ payments were used to fund work on previous customers.
“This guy is smooth,” said Veeck, who said she is now undergoing expensive chemotherapy. “I am unemployed and a widow. I have not got infinite funds; I need every dollar like everybody else today.”
Cathy Jensen, of northwest Bend, who said she and her husband are out about $8,000, said that Wisehart’s victims were those hoping to be pioneers in advancing a more sustainable future.
“He was a very cool operator,” she said.
Kelli Hewitt, co-owner of another Bend solar-energy contractor, E2 Powered, said her firm has been called in to repair or complete as many as 12 renewable-energy projects that Wisehart had started.
She said Wisehart was well-known in the industry and had been at the forefront of the solar boom starting about five years ago.
“I would say in Bend he was very well-known, and I would say it’s not just Bend; he’s done systems throughout Oregon and probably in California and Washington as well.
“We’re too small of an industry and too new to fight those kinds of stigmas,” she said of the allegations against Wisehart, which she called “unfortunate.”
Between 2001 and 2007, he was suspended four times by the state Construction Contractors Board for a number of violations including “dishonest or fraudulent conduct,” according to the agency. In January 2008, the board refused to reissue his license based on at least 16 complaints, including for dishonest and fraudulent behavior.
He owes the board about $40,000 for claims filed by past clients, according to the board’s Web site.
Wisehart was first arrested one year ago, in September 2008, when detectives with the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office executed a search warrant on his home. Court documents show that detectives also seized computers and other equipment.
Deschutes County Chief Deputy District Attorney Darryl Nakahira said the investigation has been long and involved because of the need to analyze computers, as well as the decision to prosecute him for racketeering, a criminal statute originally written for organized crime and which alleges an enterprise based on a pattern of criminal activity.
To assist in the case, Dugan and Nakahira requested assistance from the Oregon Department of Justice and state Attorney General John Kroger.
In a news release Wednesday, Kroger said, “Oregon needs green jobs, not green crime.”
Wisehart is scheduled to return to court to enter a plea Sept. 30.
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