Elmhurst man sentenced after most recent repair fraud conviction
An Elmhurst man has been sentenced to seven years in prison after admitting he defrauded customers of his home repair company out of thousands of dollars in DuPage County.
Edmund Kavanaugh, 53, who operated Goliath Construction, collected payments after completing little to no work in multiple instances across nearly two decades, according to a news release issued Monday by the Illinois attorney general's office. Authorities say he used aliases so customers wouldn't learn of his lengthy criminal history.
He was indicted on Feb. 2, 2021, by a DuPage County grand jury on four counts of theft and seven counts of home repair fraud. The victims in that case lived in Westmont, Hanover Park and Bloomingdale, according to DuPage court records.
The next day, Kavanaugh was sentenced to two years in prison on a theft by deception charge. In that case, he was accused of defrauding an Elmhurst couple by selling them a defective refrigerator.
He also received a seven-year sentence after a Will County conviction on charges of continuing a financial crimes enterprise, theft and home repair fraud that were filed in 2020.
Cook County charges filed in 2021 are still pending.
"Edmund Kavanaugh has a long history of scamming and defrauding the residents of DuPage and Cook counties. When one scam was stopped, he simply developed new ways to steal thousands of dollars from his victims," Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul said in the news release. "Individuals like him have no place in our communities, and I am pleased with this sentence that will prevent him from preying on future residents."
• Daily Herald staff writer Susan Sarkauskas contributed to this report.