Trial for man accused of theft by deception through HVAC business ends in hung jury

A jury of 10 men and two women deliberated more than two hours and were unable to come to a unanimous decision in the stealing case of a Theodosia man.

William Hansen, owner of Absolute Heating and Air Solutions, was charged with stealing more than $750 when he allegedly committed “theft by deception” in 2022 after accepting more than $9,700 from a Theodosia resident and not buying or completing installation of HVAC units.

First to testify was former Ozark County Sheriff’s Deputy Lt. Seth Miller, who spoke about issuing and executing the warrant for Hansen at his home in Arizona. After Miller’s testimony, Hansen’s former employee Charles Hoppes took the stand. According to Hoppes, he worked for Hansen from May to October 2022. During that time, Hoppes testified that no equipment was installed in the Nease’s home, despite Hansen dropping off Hoppes at their home on several occasions. 

“Would he say he left to get parts?” asked Ozark County Prosecuting Attorney Lee Pipkins.

“Yes,” answered Hoppes.

Hoppes also said that Hansen forgot to pick him up two or three times when he was at the Neases. But that was not uncommon, Hoppes testified. 

“And why did you quit working for [Hansen]?” Pipkins questioned.

“I quit work because he was ripping people off and underpaying me,” said Hoppes.

Hansen’s attorney Graham Potter of Kansas City was the next to question Hoppes.

Potter questioned Hoppes as to what he did while he was at the Neases after Hansen dropped him off.

“Yard work, mostly,” answered Hoppes.

“Did he pay you or did the Neases pay you?” Potter asked.

“The Neases,” answered Hoppes.

Hoppes then testified that he expected to be paid by the Neases.

“So basically he was giving you a ride for an odd job,” observed Potter. “Did you ever get some jobs done when working with Mr. Hansen?”

“Some,” said Hoppes.

After hearing Hoppes testify that he was the only worker for Hansen, Potter asked him about removal of HVAC units.

“Can one man do it on his own?” asked Potter.

“Yes and no,” answered Hoppes. “It depends on the unit. But it’s easier as a two man job.”

Hoppes testified that before he quit working for Hansen, he expected to be paid $10 an hour and to be paid on a regular basis but “he paid me when he felt like it.”

“How often did he pay you?” Potter asked.

“He paid when I had to make him,” answered Hoppes.

“So you’re saying he wouldn’t pay on time, but he did ultimately pay you?” Potter asked.

“Not in full,” Hoppes testified before saying he should have made between $400 and $500 for an average week. “I was lucky to get $100.”

“Do you have a lot of hard feelings toward Mr. Hansen? Are you angry with him?” Potter asked.

“I would say no,” answered Hoppes.

Cheryl Nease

The next to testify was the victim Cheryl Nease who said that Hansen had been recommended by a friend. She said that Hansen gave her an estimate of $9,700 for three split HVAC units.

Nease was then shown a series of exhibits including text messages and receipts for $9,700, $1,200 and one for $4,000.

Pipkins asked Nease what the $9,700 was for.

“He told me if I gave him cash he’d order the units right [then] and he wouldn’t have to wait for my check to clear,” Nease testified.

She also said that “quite a while later” she asked Hansen about some deck work she needed done and he said he would hire a crew from Kansas City to do the work. She then testified that she paid the $4,000 for the deck directly to Hansen.

When asked about the $1,200 she testified the money was to remove and install the new HVAC units.

Nease said that after he took the money and they made several plans for him to do the work, she would call him. “He’d say ‘I’m someplace else, I’ve got a lot going on.’ I told him we weren’t in a hurry and that it could wait until spring. But then I told him if I didn’t get the units then I wanted my money back.”

“Did he offer you a refund?” Asked Pipkins.

“No,” she answered. “He said that on the Better Business Bureau site ‘I don’t refund on ordered equipment.’ But I didn’t receive a receipt from him for the ordered equipment.”

Nease then said she sent a letter with a tracking number to Hansen, but he never received the letter. When asked what was in the letter, she said, “If you can’t get me my money for the units then deliver them to my storage unit.”

When Potter began cross examining Nease, he asked her about Hoppes. 

“He would bring Charley over,” she said. “Then we would have to think of things for Charley to do.”

“Did you ask [Hansen] for Charley to come and do yard work?” Potter asked her.

“No. He was dropped off presumably to wait for [Hansen] to work on the HVAC,” she answered. “I asked [Hansen] if I should pay Charley directly and he said yes.”

After Potter finished, Pipkins asked Nease a few more questions.

“Do you recall the last time you had a direct conversation with Hansen?” He asked her.

After admitting that after three years she couldn’t remember, Pipkins showed her the call logs and text messages, showing the jury that the last phone call between Hansen and Nease was Oct. 10, 2022, and the last text message was Oct. 20. 

“I tried to call him several times after that with no answer,” said Nease.

Potter then asked Nease more questions about the deck work and text messages between her and Hansen. She agreed that she hired Hansen to do the work on Aug. 10 and paid him on Aug. 16.

“Were there times you had to cancel?” He asked.

“No,” she answered. “It was all him. I had to cancel doctors’ appointments and other appointments [when we thought he was coming].”

“On Oct. 17, did you say, ‘I really want to paint my basement, we can wait until next spring’?” He asked.

“Yes,” she answered. “I was trying to be helpful.”

“So there was no date for the work to finish?”

“No,” she said. “Just what he told me.”

“So you could say there was no contract with him for a time to get done,” he said to her. “You changed your mind pretty fast [about getting the job done in the spring.]”

“If you could say a month was fast,” she said.

Potter then asked about the letter Nease sent to Hansen. She testified that Hansen told her that he didn’t received the letter “but I had sent him texts that said the same thing: I wanted the units or the money.”

“And then you fired him,” Potter said.

“He could have come and finished,” she said. “If he showed up on my doorstep and said he was there to do the work I probably would have let him.”

William Hansen

After a short recess, the defendant William Hansen testified.

He testified that he had been working in HVAC since 2010 and had “thousands of clients” in the years since. 

“Cheryl called me,” he said. “She said she had just moved to town. She inquired about the HVAC first and the deck second. In Theodosia it isn’t easy to get contractors so I told her I had some friends from Kansas City [that could do the job].”

Potter asked Hansen why the work wasn’t started immediately after he received Nease’s money. 

“Between her schedule and our schedule we were so busy,” he said. “I had to have help…I hired Charley as an independent contractor. He worked part time when I needed a second or third person. I had another person working for me…I couldn’t find anyone qualified to help, and I had to do everything myself.”

Potter asked about a text early in the month of September of 2022 when Nease asked Hansen to do the installation.

“She said she canceled a trip but at that time I was doing an install that I told her I had to get finished,” Hansen testified. 

Hansen then said Nease sent a text on Sept. 17 telling him that if he wasn’t coming over that day then the job could wait until spring.

“What did that mean to you?” Potter asked his client.

“It meant that literally we could finish jobs I had outstanding, and I had no time deadline,” said Hansen.

“Why was there so much delay?” asked Potter.

“She had doctor appointments and was out of town,” Hansen testified. “They were just rescheduling. If we were available we would have been there. My intention was to complete the job.”

Hansen said he never intended to deceive Nease. “Then she said we could wait until spring. And then she sent me a message that said we needed to talk about a legal matter, so I immediately called my lawyer.”

“You thought you were being fired,” said Potter.

“Yes,” said Hansen. “My thought was that [she was saying] either we show up that day [or she was filing a lawsuit]. After 20-plus years with an A+ rating [my reputation] was [being destroyed].”

“Would you say you attempted to order the equipment?” asked Potter.

“Absolutely,” Hansen answered.

Potter then asked Hansen about Hoppes. “Why was he doing yard work?”

“In Theodosia it’s hard to get help for anything,” Hansen said. “She asked me if she could use Charley, I think just a couple of times.”

Hansen said that shortly before Nease began telling him she was going to sue him or press charges, he left Theodosia and went to Arizona where he now lives.

“Why did you move?” asked Potter.

“After 20 years, the blasts on Facebook ruined my reputation,” Hansen said. However, he said his initial motivation for going to Arizona was “four more months in the working season.”

“Why did you leave without getting their work done?” Potter asked.

“I felt like we had time to get the Neases done,” said Hansen.

“So it’s safe to say you did not take her money to take her money and run?” said Potter.

Hansen nodded. “I absolutely agree with that statement…It was to get the job done.”

Pipkins then took the opportunity to question Hansen.

“According to the text messages between the two of you, there were lots of excuses why you were not getting done,” Pipkins said, showing the text messages to Hansen.

“On Oct. 10 you texted, ‘Are you home this week? You’re on the schedule for today.’ Ms. Nease said, ‘I’ll be here.’”

Pipkins then pointed out that Hansen did not show up that day and texted Nease, ‘We’ve been super busy…I’ll send Charley…Thank you for being patient with us.’

He then went on to ask about the Oct. 17 text concerning the basement painting. “So at that point you still hadn’t got the units ordered?”

Hansen admitted that he had not ordered the units at that time.

Pipkins then showed other texts between the defendant and Nease.

On Oct. 19, Nease texted, ‘What time tomorrow?’ and Hansen answered ‘After 11.’

On Oct. 20, Nease texted, ‘Are you not coming today?’ and Hansen responded, ‘I got hung up.’

Then on Oct. 28, Nease texted Hansen that she wanted her money back or for the units to be delivered to her storage unit and that day was the “final day to resolve this.”

“Did you ever show her proof that you had ordered the units?” asked Pipkins.

“Uh. I’m not for sure,” answered Hansen.

“Do you want to flip through [the messages] real quick?”

At that point Hansen admitted he had not shown proof of purchase to Nease. “Well, after that we were threatened [with legal action],” he said.

“The reality was that you hadn’t ever ordered the units,” Pipkins said.

“I spoke with my supplier Justin,” said Hansen.

“Did you tell her if she paid you in cash you would order right then?” asked Pipkins.

“I referenced that, yes,” said Hansen. However, he admitted that he never provided Nease with an invoice stating that he had ordered the HVAC units.

“But you said you could order them faster,” said Pipkins. But three months later there still hadn’t been any units delivered.”

“Between that time was when she threatened to sue me,” said Hansen.

“Up until Oct. 28 there hadn’t been a threat of anything,” Pipkins responded.

After a few more questions, Pipkins turned attention to Hansen’s move to Arizona. “Why did you leave?”

“Because it felt like business was drying up because of her Facebook post,” said Hansen.

“Is it a reality that hers was not the lone case on Facebook about your business in this area?” asked Pipkins.

“That was the start of my downfall,” said Hansen.

“Were there other people complaining about your work on Facebook?” Pipkins asked again.

“Yes,” Hansen admitted. “After her post.”

“Were you previously convicted of a felony?” asked Pipkins.

“When I was younger,” admitted Hansen.

“What were you convicted of?”

“I don’t remember,” said Hansen.

“You are a convicted felon and you don’t remember what you were convicted for?” said Pipkins, before telling the court that Hansen had been convicted of burglary and theft.

Closing arguments

Pipkins was the first to give closing arguments.

“This is a case of coulda-woulda-shoulda,” Pipkins began. “He coulda finished the project. He coulda started the project. He coulda proved with a receipt that he ordered the units.

“But instead he testified that he was not coming back to this area because of the Facebook [posts]. Instead he ran off to Arizona and stayed there until an officer tracked him down.

“Woulda. A normal person woulda said ‘I’ll provide you with proof of purchase of the units’ instead of taking your money and still not having the units…

“Shoulda. [Nease] shoulda checked him better and not try to be nice. She shoulda said ‘hey, show me proof’ way earlier.

“Some people are nice and give the benefit of the doubt. And some people are not nice and try to take people’s money.”

Potter then addressed the jury.

“This case is not Nease vs. Hansen. This is the state of Missouri vs. Hansen. If this was a civil [case], then yes he’s liable. But this is not.

“This requires a whole other level of proof…

“We have a breach of contract, there’s no doubt about that. But incompetence isn’t criminal. He did not intend to fall short. My client did not purposefully not get this done…

“He talked to his distributor, maybe not as soon as he should have, but she said he had until spring so in his mind he had until then. My client was not evil-minded in this…

“Do not let the state overreach. Not guilty doesn’t always mean innocent.”

Verdict

Because the jury could not reach a consensus after deliberating for more than two hours, Judge Craig Carter declared a mistrial in the case. It can be tried again.

Hansen is scheduled to appear in Ozark County court at 9:30 a.m. Sept. 3 for a new trial setting.