Texas Couple’s Home Renovation Scam Leaves Trail of Destruction

In a scheme that combined social media savvy with brazen deception, Christopher and Raquelle Judge of Texas transformed themselves into the nightmare version of popular home renovation stars. Between August 2020 and January 2023, the couple masqueraded as qualified contractors through their company, Judge DFW LLC, convincing approximately 40 homeowners to entrust them with their renovation dreams—and their money. By the time their fraud was uncovered, the Judges had pocketed $4.8 million, leaving behind a trail of structurally unsound, half-completed homes and financially devastated families. Christopher falsely presented himself as a licensed architect, while the pair strategically underbid legitimate contractors to win business, claiming their below-market prices were simply because they were building their new company’s portfolio. Their victims would soon discover the devastating reality behind these too-good-to-be-true offers.

Lane Simmons and his wife represent just one family caught in the Judges’ deceptive web. Finding the couple through a social media recommendation in a local mothers’ group, they were charmed by the Judges’ presentation, which Simmons described as projecting a “Chip and Joanna Gaines type of vibe,” referencing the beloved stars of HGTV’s “Fixer Upper.” The reality couldn’t have been further from this wholesome image. “My house—everything that they did is wrong,” Simmons told WFAA news. “Within weeks, my tile is cracking. My floors are cracking. My kitchen floor is sinking in. The exterior trim looks like a child did it.” The structural issues weren’t merely cosmetic—they were dangerous. “My staircase had to be re-torn out and rebuilt. It was only held up by one piece of board on the inside. Just code violation after code violation,” Simmons explained. After paying the Judges approximately $200,000, the Simmons family had to invest even more money to correct the hazardous work, which a friend in the construction industry described as “probably the worst job I’ve ever seen.”

The pattern of destruction and abandonment repeated across dozens of families. Kristin Newman hired the Judges to build her dream home from scratch, only to watch her hopes crumble as construction delays mounted, costs inexplicably increased, and obvious flaws appeared in the work. When she began demanding answers, Christopher Judge simply vanished. “He just walked off,” Newman recounted. “He just stopped talking to us. Never came back.” Like the Simmons family, Newman had paid the fraudulent contractors $200,000, but then faced the crushing reality of needing another $200,000 to hire legitimate professionals to complete and repair the work. Newman recognized the calculated nature of the fraud, noting, “This isn’t just a bad business decision or ‘I don’t know how to build houses.’ This was—he chose to lie. He chose to steal. And Raquelle chose to lie and to steal, along with him.” The financial impact was even more severe for some victims—at least one homeowner was forced to declare bankruptcy after being defrauded by the couple.

While their clients’ lives were being upended, the Judges diverted approximately $865,000 of their ill-gotten gains to fund a lavish lifestyle. Federal records revealed they spent $10,000 on plastic surgery and an astounding $82,000 on Amazon purchases—all financed by the dreams and savings of the families they had betrayed. Their operation followed a consistent pattern: win trust through social media and personal charm, secure contracts with artificially low bids, collect substantial payments upfront, perform substandard work that violated basic building codes, and then either abandon projects entirely or claim they were complete despite glaring deficiencies. When customers began to complain or ask questions, the Judges would become increasingly difficult to reach before cutting communication entirely, leaving homeowners with dangerous, uninhabitable spaces and depleted finances.

The collapse of the Judges’ scheme began when victims like Lane Simmons moved beyond individual civil lawsuits and began uncovering the true extent of the fraud. Simmons hired an inspector who discovered that Christopher had no architectural license, confirming that their entire professional presentation was fabricated. As more victims connected and shared their experiences, a pattern of deliberate deception emerged that caught the attention of federal authorities. The investigation revealed how the Judges had systematically preyed upon homeowners’ trust and dreams, exploiting the popularity of home renovation shows and social media to create a veneer of legitimacy for their fraudulent operation. What many victims initially wrote off as incompetence or business failure was revealed to be calculated criminal activity designed to extract maximum payments while delivering minimal value.

Justice finally began to take shape in December 2023, when both Judges entered guilty pleas in federal court. Raquelle Judge pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud on December 17, facing a potential five-year federal prison sentence with sentencing scheduled for April 14, 2024. Christopher Judge entered his guilty plea to the same charge on December 30 but faces a more severe potential sentence of up to 20 years in federal prison, with his sentencing set for May 12, 2024. While these legal consequences represent a form of accountability, they provide little comfort to the dozens of families left with compromised homes, financial hardship, and shattered trust. The case serves as a sobering reminder that in the age of social media-fueled home renovation culture, the line between inspiration and exploitation can be dangerously thin, with devastating consequences for those who place their homes—and their trust—in the wrong hands.