MEMPHIS, Tenn.—James, Joshua, Jason. This man goes by many different names but these employees say the game is all the same.
“He told me his name was Joshua Smith. I looked him up on google he goes by Jason, Jonathon, Jerrell the last name Smith or Gators,” Ursula Ware, a former employee, said.
In this latest scheme workers say Smith recruited about nine of them to help with his company, K&K Property Investment LLC — and for Ware at first, things seemed legit.
“Background check, drug screen he seemed to be professional,” Ware said.
About two weeks into her new gig says things started going sour. A check bounced for the payment of their building and workers had to move.
“A property he attempted to buy, an $8 million dollar property, that check bounced,” Ware said.
Not only were those checks bouncing — but checks he wrote for food at Jason’s Deli in Cordova didn’t clear — and even worse, Ware found out Smith was writing bad checks to charities.
He wrote checks to Hearts for Hope and Healing, a non-profit that helps those fighting addiction. Rebecca Farrugia shared this voicemail with us with Smith calling about giving to the program.
“He said he’d lost a sister to addiction and his heart was really there,” Farrugia said.
“I am totally shocked he definitely had us fooled,” Ware said.
Turns out it’s not the first time Smith has been accused of trying to get over on someone.
According to police, he posed as a Jason Smith, bought Southern Heritage tickets with bad checks then sold them. All those tickets were voided.
Once everything started to come to light Ware and the rest of the women working for K&K Property Investment confronted him and quit.
“I quit my job, a job I get paid every week to come and basically get played with. I have four kids I am taking care of on my own and now I’m jobless,” Ware said.
WREG called Smith for answers but got his voicemail and then a text telling us to call his attorney.
His attorney hasn’t returned our call.
