By Tiffany Flournoy
A Bossier City man was convicted Aug. 24 of felony home improvement fraud in Webster Parish after pleading guilty and was sentenced to three years in prison, suspended. Steven Cantu, 45, will instead serve three years on active supervised probation.
The case stems from a 2021 home improvement transaction involving a Webster Parish homeowner who paid more than $4,100 toward the replacement of a swimming pool liner, according to a 2023 report. Cantu was associated with Artistic Backyard Creations.
Cantu withdrew his previous plea of not guilty and entered a guilty plea to one count of home improvement fraud in 26th Judicial District Court.
As a condition of probation, Cantu was ordered to pay $4,125 in restitution and $618.75 in prosecution costs, for a total of $4,743.75. The restitution must be paid through the District Attorney’s Office within the first 24 months. He also was ordered to pay a $100 monthly probation fee and comply with the conditions of probation.
According to reports, the homeowner was quoted more than $5,500 for the work and paid a deposit of more than $4,100. A crew later removed the existing pool liner, but the replacement was not delivered.
The homeowner later told deputies that Steven Cantu asked her to drop any charges, blamed his father and said he would return her money. The money was reportedly not returned.
Cantu’s father, Fabio Cantu, was also prosecuted in connection with the case. Fabio Cantu pleaded guilty to home improvement fraud in 2023 and was sentenced to three years with the Louisiana Department of Corrections, with credit for time served.
Cantu also pleaded guilty in 2022 in Bossier District Court to four counts of residential contractor fraud involving more than $25,000 and five counts of misapplication of payment by a contractor. Judge Mike Craig sentenced Cantu to eight years on each contractor-fraud count, with all but four years suspended on one count and the sentences on the remaining counts suspended. He also sentenced Cantu to 90 days in parish jail on the misapplication-of-payment counts, with credit for time served.
The Bossier court ordered Cantu to pay $294,213 in restitution, $44,131 in prosecution costs and an undetermined amount in court costs. He was prohibited from possessing a state contractor’s license and was placed on three years of supervised probation upon his release, with his case subject to review every three months.
The state objected to Cantu’s sentence in the Webster Parish case and reserved the right to file a multiple-offender bill if his probation is revoked.
If the restitution is paid in full, Cantu’s probation may revert to unsupervised probation.