SCRANTON -- A contractor from Taylor who admits to ripping off almost two dozen clients entered a guilty plea in Lackawanna County.
Some of Joseph Senese's victims were in court on Tuesday.
Senese has been behind bars since his arrest last July. The unlicensed contractor pleaded guilty to ripping off 23 clients over the span of three years, most of them senior citizens who are still struggling.
Marcia Shaffer says since Senese stole $3,400 from her. She's struggled to keep her husband in a nursing home. Shaffer is hearing-impaired but still felt the need to express what Senese did to her.
"When I first met him, I had a bad feeling about him, but I didn't go by my instinct," said Shaffer.
Senese pleaded guilty at the Lackawanna County Courthouse to charges that he stole more than $34,000 from his clients. He admitted to taking money from them and in many cases never doing the work.
"Sometimes you bid a job too short or you don't have enough to pay for the materials or labor, so I think it is something that got out of hand," said Senese's attorney Bill Thompson.
Senese was sentenced immediately to time served, meaning he could be released in a few days, but Senese will be on probation for three years and has to slowly pay back all of his clients.
"If he fails to make a payment of restitution, the judge can bring him in, violate him, and resentence him," explained Lackawanna County Assistant District Attorney Suzy Tierney.
Victim Wayne Alward isn't expecting to see his money anytime soon. He's just happy that he saw justice.
"On top of that, I think the judge has let them know, the court has let them know, that if you're going to come to Scranton, set up shop, to prey on our senior citizens, they're going to be looking for trouble."
Senese's defense attorney told us that Senese was not a licensed contractor during the time he was stealing from clients, even though he was listed as a licensed contractor with the state attorney general's office. The victim's we talked to say they did not ask Senese to show them a license.
