FORNEY, Texas — Lillian Custom Homes sent a letter to Travis Ranch area residents after one of their in-home warranty representatives was arrested yesterday — revealing the employee’s criminal history which included theft of property, burglary of a building, and drug charges.
FORNEY, Texas — Lillian Custom Homes sent a letter to Travis Ranch area residents after one of their in-home warranty representatives was arrested yesterday — revealing the employee’s criminal history which included theft of property, burglary of a building, and drug charges.
Yesterday, Kaufman County Precinct 2 Constable Jason Johnson said his office arrested 49-year-old George Jeffrey Kokinda on multiple outstanding warrants and possession of a controlled substance in penalty group 1 after officers discovered approximately a gram of both liquid and crystal meth in Kokinda’s vehicle.
Kokinda told officers he was a warranty representative with Lillian Custom Homes.
The arrest revealed Kokinda’s criminal history which includes recent convictions for burglary of a building and theft of property in Tarrant County in 2013 and 2014, respectively, and also a possession of a controlled substance in penalty group 1 less than one gram in 2013.
Johnson sent out a warning to residents of Travis Ranch, Windmill Farms, and Heartland for residents to be cautious of in-home service employees.
“You, as a homeowner, have the right to contact the builders to make sure their employees have a clean criminal history before they send someone out to do work,” Johnson stated.
In a letter sent to Travis Ranch residents, Lillian Custom Homes Owner George Salvador apologized to area residents for their lack of pre-employment screening.
“We hired this warranty representative with the best of intentions,” stated Salvador.
“As you may know, Lillian Custom Homes works closely with veterans, not only providing incentives for new home purchases, but also providing jobs to them as well,” Salvador stated. “When we discovered that this individual was a veteran that had an extensive background working with other homebuilders, we thought he would be a great fit to our warranty department.”
“As a small local business with less than 40 employees, most of our hiring is done by word of mouth and referrals, thus we have not felt the need to conduct background checks until this time,” Salvador stated.
“We are revising our hiring practices to include background checks,” Salvador stated. “We want to prevent incident like this from happening in the future.”
“You can rest assured that the warranty representative that was recently arrested is no longer with our company,” stated Salvador.
Kokinda is being held at the Kaufman County Jail on a bond of $20,000 for the possession charge and $3,227.10 in bonds on warrants out of Arlington and Fort Worth.