Cape Police say more victims come forward in Dylan Moon case

Dylan Wray Moon was arrested on Monday and charged with several grand theft charges and scheme to defraud charges.

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

Lisa Greenberg of the Cape Coral Police Department said Moon stole thousands of dollars. “This is just a situation where it’s a contractor who’s agreed to do multiple jobs and didn’t complete any of them or return the money,” Greenberg said.

In 2022, Cape PD started getting reports regarding Moon. They opened an investigation and went forward with charges from three victims. Since the arrest, they have heard from others.

“Since we publicized his arrest on Monday, we’ve had at least two more reports come in to our department about Moon with similar situations. And of course, we are getting people who are commenting on the Facebook page and calling our department as well,” Greenberg said.

Since the arrest, WINK News has also gotten messages from several people claiming Moon took their money.

On Tuesday, we met Michele Belmont, who signed a contract with Moon in 2022. She lost $33,000 and never got a dock.

• RELATED: Victim of alleged dock builder fraud shares her story

On Wednesday, WINK News met Lindsey Lagasse, another previous customer of Moon who had a very similar story to Belmont. She described the day she signed the contract, which WINK News Reporter Olivia Jean saw.

“He drove up in a Rusnell Construction van and said he was Mr. Rusnell. I said back to him, ‘Oh, great. I said, I think there’s other docks on my block you built?’ And he said, Yeah, I probably have,” Lagasse recalled.

Moon impersonated his boss and gave a false name. Shortly after the contract was signed, Moon never worked on the dock. Lagasse said she was in communication with Moon, until he stopped communications.

“He had called me back, and he said, ‘I didn’t plan on building your dock anyhow. FU, and you’ll never get your money back. You’ll never see it again. So try it, try it. Try reporting me, it’ll never work.’ He was very confident about it, so I call the sheriff immediately,” said Lagasse.

The Sheriff’s office came to Lagasse’s home and spoke with her. An officer then went to the bank with her to see if she could get her money back. Turns out, Moon’s girlfriend had already cashed the check.

“I feel as though that they should have looked him up better than that,” Lagasse said. She said if the Lee County Sheriff’s Office did something about Moon in 2019, then maybe he would’ve been stopped.

“I begged them to follow up. These other people wouldn’t have lost so much money,” Lagasse said.

Lagasse claims Moon took $12,000 from her back in 2019, which means he has been doing this for years.

Lagasse said she went to the actual Mr. Rusnell, the one who owns the dock company, to tell him about Moon impersonating him. Mr. Rusnell confirmed this meeting back in 2019 to WINK.

Rusnell said Moon worked for him, and he apologized to Lagasse and then built her dock himself.

After hearing about the impersonation, Rusnell fired Moon, and Moon has not been associated with the company since.

Lagasse paid $12,000 to Moon, then paid more money to Rusnell. She has a dock now, making her luckier than others, but still out thousands of dollars.

“I just seen his picture in the news last night, and I said, ‘Oh, my God, that’s the same guy. He’s doing the same thing. He’s been, he’s probably been going around doing the same thing to everybody,’ but there are a group of people that are too embarrassed to even let people know that they’ve been used like that,” Lagasse said.

That group of embarrassed people does exist, but the Cape Coral Police Department is asking them to come forward.

“Please don’t be embarrassed to come forward,” Greenberg said. “If you’re someone who’s lost thousands of dollars to a suspect like this, we want to be able to take on your case, investigate and potentially bring that person to justice for you. We’re not able to do that if we don’t have that information from you.”

She continued to say, “We are seeing multiple people who are filing cases related to this same suspect, so you’re not alone. We want to be able to help you.”

Cape Coral PD believes there are plenty more victims, and they have a message for them.

“File a police report if you’re in a situation where you’ve paid for work, signed contracts and it’s not being done. That is a good first step to see if this is something that our department can work with you on to try to bring justice,” Greenberg said.

The police department also gave some advice when hiring contractors.

• Make sure the person you are considering is a licensed contractor
• Negotiate a smaller payment upfront or payment installments as the work is being done
• Pay in a form that is traceable (so, no cash)
• Get referrals

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