Monument Police: Contractor accused of fraud reported missing by wife
We reported this week when Daniel Nail, the Monument-area contractor accused of defrauding more than a dozen people, failed to appear in court — now police say he’s considered a missing person.
Nail is accused of swindling clients out of tens of thousands of dollars and was due in court Wednesday but he didn’t show up.
Friday, Monument police sent out a public notice saying that Nail has been reported missing by his wife and hasn’t been seen since Dec. 8.
Nail’s car was impounded, so he may not have access to a vehicle, but he was last seen wearing khaki pants, a grey shirt, grey hat, and a black jacket.
Nail has several active warrants for his arrest.
At this point, police haven’t said there’s a threat to the public.
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Daniel Nail, a contractor from the Monument area accused of defrauding more than a dozen out of tens of thousands of dollars, failed to appear in court Wednesday.
Judge William Bain ordered a no-bond warrant out for Nail’s arrest. This means Nail will be unable to post bond while awaiting trial. In addition, Nail is facing two other bonds equaling $300K.
(RELATED STORY: Monument roofer accused of swindling over a dozen clients arrested for weapons charge)
KRDO has been following this story for close to a month now and it’s brought our attention to several flaws in our county licensing system with The Pikes Peak Regional Building Department. (PPRBD)
First: how can a contractor who’s facing a slew of fraud charges, including a no-bond warrant out for his arrest, still manage to have had a valid, active license with our county governing authority for five straight months with no warning to the public?
When our team asked the agency responsible, they responded by saying “That would be a hard change to our system.”
According to the PPRBD code, they only have authority to revoke a license if someone’s been convicted of a crime.
It’s a problem — because people are still going to Nail for business.
“We’ve seen it a lot the past couple of weeks because people see that he has a valid license online,” said Cassie Eiler, a former employee of Nail, who co-owns another roofing company.
“These people already gave their money to him because they didn’t know he was under investigation, nothing was on the website,” she said.
So we asked why the department can’t put a warning on the website to signal if a contractor is under investigation. But we never got a solid answer.
“The answer is maybe,” said the department attorney.
The second flaw: Background checks. The department does them, but only for trade-related felonies. This means convictions of serious drug or assault-related felonies are not flagged. A person could have a violent criminal background without your knowledge.
We then took this to El Paso County Commissioner Mark Waller, who is a member of the Regional Building Commission. Waller defended the current system as it stands and made it clear it would just be “too long of a process” to fix these issues.
If you are a victim of Nail and are in need of assistance, email Stephanie directly at Stephanie.Sierra@KRDO.com.
