Victim of alleged dock builder fraud shares her story

New details are coming to light after multiple people allege tens of thousands of dollars were stolen right out of their hands.

Several victims allege that Dylan Moon, who was arrested in Cape Coral, didn’t finish the job and didn’t give back their deposits.

• RELATED: Contractor accused of stealing money after not completing work in Cape Coral

Since the publishing of the article above, several people have reached out to WINK News to share their stories.

On Tuesday, WINK News Reporter Olivia Jean sat down with one of his victims. The victim shared her story of how she lost $33,000 to Moon.

“This gentleman stood in our kitchen; he presented himself very well. He was a good salesman that even sent us photographs. I’ve got hundreds of text messages,” Michele Belmont, a former customer of Moon said.

She talked about how Moon would send pictures of docks to her, assuring her he would do the job well and right.

Belmont felt like she needed to share her story so that others wouldn’t have to go through what she’s currently going through.

“Dylan is still out there posing as a dock builder, collecting money from people. He’s still doing this to people,” Belmont said.

A former employee of Moon told Belmont he now uses different aliases and names when getting new clients. WINK News could not confirm this statement.

Belmont is one of the several victims who decided to sue Moon, his company Oceanside Marine Contracting Group LLC and Titan Contracting LLC, after her dock was never built and her money was never returned.

Belmont walked WINK News through the entire timeline of events:

• May 2022 – Belmont met with Moon and signed a contract for him to do her dock. Before a contract was signed, Belmont went to see a dock he had built previously. Belmont said it was a very nice dock and she wanted something similar for her home.
• August 2022 – The barge arrived and construction was supposed to start the day after, but it didn’t. He tore out the old dock the day the barge arrived, and then “He then never showed up. It took weeks, and we’re waiting, and we’re waiting,” Belmont said. “It was one excuse after the other, but he was staying in touch with us at the time. So you know, we were excited about that.”
• September 2022 – Four days before Hurricane Ian, construction started on the dock, but the pilings next to the seawall were in the completely wrong place. “I called Dylan on the phone and I said, ‘Hey, this is wrong, you’re not doing this the right way.’ To say that he got threatening and aggressive would be an understatement,” Belmont said. She hung up the phone. He called back 10 minutes later “calm, cool and collected” and apologized, saying he would fix the mistake.
• September 29, 2022 (Day after Hurricane Ian) – Moon texted Belmont asking if his barge was okay. They stated it was and sent him the photo of the barge still intact. He stated he was taking the barge away to go “do God’s work” and help people stranded on Captiva and Sanibel. The barge was removed, and Belmont told Moon to take 30 days off. “He had every excuse in the book that he was rescuing people on his barge. So, he couldn’t come to us yet. So we said to him, ‘You know, we’ll give you 30 days, go ahead and do what you need to do.’ We were all frantic after the storm,” she said.
• December 30, 2022 – This is the last day Moon responded to Belmont. Before this, he would call weekly, saying he would be there next Thursday. Those Thursdays would come and go, and Moon would never show up. “He fell off the face of the earth, never responded and never offered to give the money back, never contacted us again. He’s an absolute liar. He’s a scary guy. I can understand why other victims don’t want to come forward,” she said.
• January 2023 – Still, no dock. Belmont got a call from Corey Johnston, the lender who had been financing Dylan’s business, who said he had repossessed the barge but said he would complete the dock for additional money.  “It was at that point that we started to do some research and contacted Titan Construction, who’s the other entity that’s named on the contract. We had lengthy discussions with the owner of Titan Construction, Clint Greene, who initially stated he would ” take care of it.” she said. Clint even sent other dock crews out to look at what we had. Long story short, I have now filed a lawsuit against Titan and Oceanside Marine (Moon’s company).

In response to the original article posted on Facebook about Moon’s arrest, Moon commented on the post saying, “Hey when a hurricane destroys your dock. I’m not liable to fix it for free so (middle finger emoji) you.”

To be clear, Belmont’s dock was supposed to be built before the hurricane happened.

“This has nothing to do with post-hurricane repairs, because the only communication I had with Dylan Moon, after Hurricane Ian, was him texting me to tell me that he was delivering water and saving people off the islands and therefore, his barges, were in better use.” said Belmont “And then again, after that, he said he was helping his customers rescue their boats off their boat lifts and you know, it was just constant excuses even months after the hurricane.”

Belmont went on to say, “We looked at his Facebook page, very shortly after taking our money from us. He boasted on Facebook that he paid cash for a car for his girlfriend, and he went to the Superbowl, and paid cash for those tickets. We’re sitting here fuming saying, ‘Okay, well, now we sent you to the Super Bowl. That’s great. But where’s our dock?'” Belmont said.

Belmont provided WINK News with several documents. They are listed below:

• The lawsuit filed by Belmont against Moon.
• The contract signed between Belmont, Moon’s company, and Titan Construction in regards to the dock being built.
• The used boat lift agreement that Belmont paid Moon for. She never saw the boat lift.
• MyFloridaLicense (DBPR) document that shows Moon is not a “contractor.” He has no license and is only “eligible for exam.”
• MyFloridaLicense (DBPR) document showing Titan Construction is a licensed constructor, which can explain why Titan was on all of the contracts with Moon and his company.
• Document of permits pulled by Titan for the dock

Belmont says she’s not alone in her frustration with Moon.

“The scary part to me is I received phone calls from all sorts of the other victims. They’re my Facebook friends now, we’ve have all found each other,” Belmont said.

WINK News can confirm other victims have reached out, confirming Belmont’s allegations.

“With him there was constant excuses. There were medical excuses, there were equipment excuses, there were supply excuses. If he just said no problem, here’s your money back, then that would have been fine, but that was never offered from him,” Belmont said.

The question still remains: can the $33,000 dollars be returned?

“He needs to be punished for what he has done. He absolutely sought out cash payments from people, he absolutely has taken advantage of homeowners and it rises to the level where he really needs to be incarcerated and punished for what he’s done. And, of course, pay the money back as well,” Belmont said.

WINK News visited Belmont’s home on Tuesday. The materials for the dock are still in a vacant lot and have been for almost two years.

As for the new dock plans, Belmont said, “We need to save up some more money to be able to build a new dock. Once we’ve done that, of course we’ll do better at checking references and doing our research, but it’s very scary to now be in the market again, once you’ve already been bitten this badly.”

Moon did post bail.

WINK News spoke with him briefly on the phone Tuesday. He said an interview is “on his time.”

If have a similar story regarding Moon, please email olivia.jean@winknews.com.