Lawn man charged in yet another theft case

Carlos Elizondo accused of shirking landscaping job

SAN ANTONIO – A suspected, lying lawn man faces another theft charge after a pregnant woman had to make up for his alleged shirking on a paid landscaping job.

Carlos Elizondo, 45, is charged with misdemeanor theft for not completing the mowing, brush and debris removal work he was paid to do during a job at the end of 2015. It's the seventh theft case, including convictions and new accusations, for which he is currently being held at the Bexar County Jail.

The KSAT 12 Defenders have been following the accusations against Elizondo.

Police say Elizondo was contracted to mow and clear a 1.1. acre lot in the 4300 block of Industrial Center. The owner needed the lot cleaned up to avoid trouble with Code Enforcement, which had given her an extension to get the work done.

Elizondo bid $2,500 for the job and was paid $1,300 up front. 

According to the affidavit, over the following weeks, Elizondo misled the owner about the work's completion, took a final $1,240.63 payment after indicating it was done, gave excuses when it became clear it wasn't done and told the owner her code compliance case was "closed" when it very much wasn't.

Three-and-a-half weeks after she hired Elizondo, the property owner, her husband and her elderly father did the work themselves to avoid being fined.

The woman told police she was pregnant at the time and the physical labor jeopardized the pregnancy.

In the end, Elizondo was paid a total of $2,540.63 and missed the accusation becoming a felony case by only a few blades of grass.

The owner indicated Elizondo had mowed a 20' by 40' swath of the lot, though it was less than half of the mowing work that needed to be done. Another landscaping company estimated the value of that portion of work at $43.30.

When subtracted from the total he was paid, police calculated Elizondo stole $2,497.33, which kept his alleged theft under the felony threshold by less than $3.


About the Author:

Garrett Brnger is a reporter with KSAT 12.