Two arrested in swimming pool swindling

Two employees of a South Fort Myers swimming pool company are accused of scamming 36 of its customers in Lee, Collier and Charlotte counties out of more than $760,000.

Tommy Glinka, 40, 1111 Cypresstree Ave., Lehigh Acres, and David Gerring, 54, 14940 Summer Place Creek, Naples, are accused of failing to complete work for 36 customers who made payments, said Maj. Bob Johnson, chief of investigations for Florida Agriculture and Consumer Services. Each is charged with racketeering and grand theft.

The pair is said to have signed contracts to build large, in-ground swimming pools and pool-related structures in 2004 and 2005, collecting large down payments and sometimes additional draws, and then abandoning the job sites after pits were dug in yards or other preliminary work was completed. On average, the victims, who could not be reached, lost more than $21,000 each.

“Unsuspecting consumers provided large sums of money to these defendants what for many of them was their life’s dream — a pool in their back yard,” Florida Agricultural Commissioner Charles Bronson said in a press release. “Needless to say, what they received instead was a lot of heartache.”

Johnson said 33 of the victims were in Lee County, including two in Bonita Springs. Another two victims were in Naples, and one was in Charlotte County. The names of the victims were not available.

The men are associated with Gothic Pools Inc., a South Fort Myers pool company formerly located on U.S. 41, Johnson said. Gerring was a sales representative for the company. Glinka is the company’s construction foreman. Gothic Pools Inc. incorporated in 2002 but is no longer recognized as a company, Johnson said.

Two more men with the company are suspected of being involved in the scams as well, Johnson said. Their arrests are pending.

Attempts to contact someone with the company through Gothic’s two known phone numbers were unsuccessful.

The news of Gerring and Glinka’s arrest was a surprise to others in the profession.

Tracey Bryerton, co-owner of Bonita Springs-based Custom Design Pools, said she’s surprised anyone could get away with taking advantage of so many customers.

The process of obtaining permits and becoming licensed is such a tedious one that it is unlikely that a company would be in existence just to steal from its customers, Bryerton said.

The Gothic Pools situation is similar to that of Challenger Pools, a Fort Myers-based company accused of cheating customers all over the state in 2001 and 2002.

Jack Grissom, owner of Diamond Pool Construction in Bonita Springs, said those are the only two companies he’s ever heard of pulling off pool scams in Southwest Florida.

Gerring and Glinka were investigated by the Lee County State Attorney’s Office.

Gerring was booked into the Collier County jail on Wednesday, and Glinka was booked into the Lee County jail Thursday morning.