Contractor Who Felled Tree That Trapped Senior Indicted on Forgery, Other Charges

Monday, February 5, 2018 | 0

A Springfield, Ohio, home improvement contractor turned himself into the Summit County Jail Thursday after he was charged with falsifying documents, forgery and operating without a county vendor's license, among other offenses, News 5 Cleveland reports.

Cory Howard, 27, was in the news two months ago when a storm-damaged tree he was chopping down fell onto a home's back porch, trapping an 82-year-old man underneath its limbs. 

George Homa suffered a broken leg, two broken hips, a broken shoulder and a spinal fracture in the incident. 

And workers from Howard's company, Alternative Property Maintenance, never returned to clean up the mess, News 5 reported, though another company removed the fallen tree for free after seeing initial news reports on the matter. 

Now, prosecutors say Howard's company was never officially licensed to do business in Summit County in the first place.

Sherri Bevan Walsh of the Summit County Prosecutor's Office says Howard used multiple company names, none of them registered with the Ohio Secretary of State's Office.

A grand jury indicted Howard last week on charges of theft from a person in a protected class, forgery, falsification, obstruction of official business and operating without a county vendor's license. 

Howard declined to comment on the charges to News 5 last week.