by Dennis Dalman
news@thenewsleaders.com
A Sartell man has pled guilty to criminal charges related to incidents of defrauding homeowners and to check forgery that occurred during a period of years.
Travis Peterlin, 42, was arrested on Feb. 14, 2024 for a long list of criminal charges. He pled guilty recently to one count of check forgery that allowed him to steal thousands of dollars from a male senior citizen.
He also pled guilty to a charge of theft by swindle for receiving down payments for a promised in-home renovation project that he never followed through on.
Peterlin is expected to be sentenced on May 21. He also has been charged with similar alleged bilking schemes in three other counties – Hennepin, Isanti and Sherburne.
It’s alleged Peterlin defrauded four homeowners for a total of $200,000. The charges claim Peterlin would tell his “customers” the company he worked for couldn’t do specific jobs but he himself could do them on the side. At that time, he worked as an estimator for a local home-improvement company.
According to the charges, Peterlin would take down-payments from the homeowners and then fail to complete the work. The alleged swindles occurred between the fall of 2022 and the summer of 2023.
Peterlin is alleged to have convinced a woman in Isanti County to loan him more than $50,000 to buy a pickup and trailer for that woman, and then he never bought them. From that same woman, he is alleged to have collected checks worth thousands of dollars for work never performed or that exceeded by far what a project should have cost.
The woman told an investigator she had a feeling she was being swindled or overcharged but was too embarrassed to tell her children. Court records state the woman was swindled out of about $143,000.
Peterlin is also alleged to have swindled a St. Cloud man out of $68,000 in checks. The victim said he did not remember writing the checks and thought they might have been stolen from his bedroom. The charges allege the checks were all deposited into Peterlin’s bank account.
In that case, Peterlin is also accused of convincing that man to write out a $15,000 check for a Habitat for Humanity home-improvement grant application, one that did not exist.
The charges against Peterlin, in some cases, also involve alleged financial exploitation of a vulnerable adult.
Court records show he was fired from the company in July of 2023 when his alleged fraudulent activities came to light.
Travis Peterlin
