A Maryland appeals court has overturned the conviction of a District Heights home builder sentenced to 12 years in prison for misspending more than $3 million in construction loans and failing to build 10 residences in Upper Marlboro. The Maryland Court of Special Appeals reversed Leon T. Coleman’s June 2009 conviction by a Prince George’s County Circuit Court jury. A three-judge panel wrote this week that prosecutors didn’t present enough evidence to sustain Coleman’s convictions on eight counts of theft by deception and eight counts of failing to deposit money into an escrow account.
In 2004, Coleman developed contracts with 10 families to develop and build homes in an Upper Marlboro subdivision, accepting $256,000 to $381,000 in loans from each homebuyer. But the homes were never built, and Coleman was charged with theft and neglecting to put his clients’ payments into an escrow account.
He was the first person prosecuted for building violations in Prince George’s County under Maryland’s Custom Home Protection Act, which was enacted in 1986 and requires builders to place advance payments into such accounts.
But because the buyers received the deeds to the property early in the process — before the homes were constructed — they “were not in need of the protections afforded by an escrow account” under the statute, the appeals court said. It said the law “simply was not designed to address” a situation in which the lot title and the home were conveyed in separate transactions.
That means Coleman breached his contracts, but did not commit a crime, the court wrote.
The court also said prosecutors didn’t prove that Coleman intended to deceive the purchasers and back out of building the homes.
“The record is devoid of evidence that appellant did not believe his reported timetables to be true,” the appeals court wrote.
Coleman’s attorney, Sloane Franklin, said the opinion was the “right decision” and Coleman had intended to build the houses.
“He just got in over his head,” Franklin said.
Coleman is incarcerated at the Jessup Correctional Institution. Prosecutors could appeal to the Court of Appeals, Maryland’s highest court, or Coleman could be released, Franklin said.
A spokesman for the Prince George’s state’s attorney didn’t respond to a request for comment on the case.
Coleman’s wife, Emma, was also charged, but accusations against her were dropped.
