Two Co Fermanagh brothers have been jailed in the US for scamming elderly people out of thousands of dollars.
Patrick McDonagh, 35, and Matthew McDonagh, 34, from Irvinestown, have both been sentenced to 18 months in a US prison and face likely deportation.
The BBC reports the brothers travelled around Oregon and Illinois posing as home repair workers and defrauding older residents.
The brothers pleaded guilty in September.
They have already served six months of their 18-month sentence.
District Judge John H Chun called their actions “terrible and serious criminal conduct”.
The United States Department of Justice said both men face likely deportation.
The McDonaghs were arrested by U.S. Customs and Border Protection in June this year and were charged in July.
According to records filed in the case, the brothers were part of a group that travelled the country scamming homeowners – especially the elderly – by falsely representing a home needed urgent repairs.
One older homeowner in the Shoreline neighbourhood north of Seattle, lost about $435,000 to the scheme.
The men first approached the victim in January 2024, claimed they were working in the neighbourhood and had noticed that the victim had a hole in his roof.
The men offered to fix the hole and remove the moss from the roof.
Over the course of a few days, they pressured the victim to write them cheques for their “services” of $15,000, $20,000, and $26,000.
They also claimed that the victim’s foundation was cracked, and they said they would repair that with a “titanium tie rod system.”
The roof had no hole, and the foundation was not failing.
However, the men dug trenches and poured some concrete to make it appear work was done, and each day they pressured the victim to write more cheques.
They even demanded an extra $20,000 for “taxes.”
Ultimately, they demanded the victim wire $200,000 to a third party for building supplies – again far in excess of any work they claimed to have done.
In all the brothers stole $435,000 from the victim.
Quick work by a Shoreline Detective and the King County Prosecutor’s Office resulted in the recovery of some of the wired funds.
The FBI investigation connected the brothers to contractor fraud complaints in Oregon and Illinois.
In Oregon, Patrick McDonagh represented to three different victims that he was affiliated with a local legitimate construction firm, when in fact he was not.
Those homeowners paid as much as $29,000 for foundation work that was never completed as promised.
In Illinois, Matthew McDonagh claimed he would repave a victim’s driveway and rebuild a retaining wall for $99,000.
After the victim paid $75,000, the work was poorly done and damaged the victim’s house.
The value of any work done was significantly less than what was paid.
The McDonaghs have agreed to make restitution to the victims in the case.
This includes $235,000 to the Shoreline victim, nearly $50,000 to the three victims in Oregon, $75,000 to a victim in Illinois, and more than $673,000 to a victim in Bellevue, Washington.
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