SAN ANTONIO – A convicted thief with a long history of accepting payments for work he never completed was taken into custody Tuesday morning and charged in connection to two felony theft cases.
Carlos Elizondo, 49, was arrested around 7:30 a.m. at a home on the city’s North Side, a Bexar County Sheriff’s Office spokesman confirmed.
He faces charges of theft $2,500 to $30,000 and enhanced theft less than $2,500, Bexar County booking records show.
Elizondo, who told prospective clients at times he was a police officer or military veteran, accumulated 10 theft charges in less than three years, between 2014 and 2017, three of which included elderly victims, according to court records and the Defenders’ previous coverage of him and his former company, Lawn Enforcement Rescue Services.
Court records show Elizondo was released from custody in early January 2019 after serving less than a third of his four-year sentence.
After being released, and despite promising a judge he would never work in contracting again, Elizondo began using his middle name, Rene, to do business as the Alamo Fence Co., law enforcement records show.
New cases
A Bexar County grand jury in May indicted Elizondo for accepting payments last year from a Converse-area couple for a backyard deck he never completed.
The couple, Crystal and Damian McMillan, were told the $1,800 project would require three payments.
But after paying Elizondo $1,200, the McMillans said he abandoned the job after installing four wood posts in concrete.
Ring camera footage showed Elizondo accepting an envelope with $600 cash from Crystal McMillan in August 2020.
It was the last time he showed up at their property.
“I’m very angry. We work hard for our money not just to hand it out,” Damian McMillan said last year.
Crystal McMillan said she realized Rene Elizondo was actually Carlos Elizondo after recalling how she made her initial payment for the work.
“I remember when we sent him the money through Zelle he gave me his first name and I input that, and that’s when I started coming up with all the articles,” said Crystal McMillan, referencing the Defenders’ past coverage of him.
Elizondo’s second new felony theft charge stems from a May theft report made to San Antonio police in which he was accused of accepting payments totaling $2,600 for deck work he never completed.
In that case, Elizondo set some fence posts and framing boards but then began to make excuses about why he could not finish the job, his arrest warrant states.
The victim eventually hired another contractor to complete the deck and to correct errors Elizondo made, the warrant states.
Elizondo was being held at the Bexar County Jail as of Tuesday afternoon on bonds totaling $13,000.