Man gets 18 years for bilking elderly

Herman Hinojosa offered cut-rate kitchen remodeling deals, requiring only that elderly clients pay upfront, but once he got the money, he didn’t complete the jobs. Instead, he did some work or none at all.

Adams County District Judge Robert Kiesnowski gave 73-year-old Hinojosa the maximum sentence of 18 years in prison after he defrauded 30 businesses and clients, including elderly people.

“These people trusted you and you violated that trust,” Kiesnowski told Hinojosa at his sentencing Tuesday, according to a news release by Sue Lindsay, spokeswoman for District Attorney Dave Young. “A maximum aggravated sentence is warranted because of the number of victims and the extent of harm to the victims who were hard-working folks who just wanted some work done in their homes and it didn’t happen.”

According to Lindsay, Hinojosa’s Kitchens 4 Less offered, in fact, a lot less.

Some customers were left without working kitchens for months, while Hinojosa made multiple excuses about why progress was delayed, Lindsay’s news release says. He used the payments for personal expenses instead of paying for materials and contractors to perform the work.

“There are individuals here who still don’t have kitchens,” Kiesnowski said. “When you defraud people like this, the ripples are everlasting, frankly.”

Hinojosa and his wife, Susan, were charged in 2014 with 30 counts of theft and check fraud.

Susan Hinojosa in March 2016 was sentenced to eight years in prison.

“This case exemplifies the need for specialized economic crime units to investigate and prosecute fraudulent contractors who take advantage of the public,” Young said. “It is illegal for contractors to take a customer’s money upfront and not use it for their project. That is theft.”

Senior Deputy District Attorney Robyn Cafasso said Herman Hinojosa was on supervised release on a federal bank fraud conviction when he moved to Colorado and defrauded customers at his kitchen remodeling business.

“Then, while he was on bond in this case, he used his charm and wit and deceptive practices to commit more crimes,” Cafasso said.

Hinojosa entered a plea deal in which he pleaded guilty to one count of felony theft from an at-risk elder. On Friday, he was sentenced as an habitual offender to 12 years in prison in two other Adams County cases on charges of theft, forgery and check fraud in connection with his deposit of two fraudulent $5 million checks at financial institutions in Rifle. The two sentences will be served concurrently with the 18-year sentence.

All three cases were prosecuted by the Economic Crime Unit in Young’s office.