‘Organized crime’: Homeowners say Lexington Blue roofing company conned them

Customers and former employees of the failed roofing company Lexington Blue say the business and its owner committed widespread insurance fraud by stealing thousands of dollars in deposits with no intention of fixing roofs.

And sometimes, crews would damage the homes themselves, former workers said.

Eight homeowners and nine former employees told the Herald-Leader similar stories: Lexington Blue sales representatives promised potential customers free roof inspections and help with insurance claims. Once the customer signed a contract, the company took money — sometimes payments from insurance companies, but also money directly from homeowners — and seldom returned to fix the roofs.

At least a dozen, possibly hundreds of homeowners across Lexington and Central Kentucky are desperate to find someone to take up their cause. The state’s top law enforcement official is investigating complaints the company “engaged in false, misleading, and deceptive practices,” according to court filings.

“We have heard from Kentuckians about their concerns as it relates to Lexington Blue. We want to assure our constituents every phone call and email is considered and, in many cases, investigated further,” a spokesperson for Attorney General Russell Coleman’s office said in a May 12 statement to the Herald-Leader.

The complaints “reveal a consistent pattern of unlawful conduct,” the Attorney General’s office said.

No civil or criminal charges have been filed against the 10-year-old roofing company that announced April 26 it had closed abruptly.

Lexington Blue has been ordered by Franklin Circuit Judge Phillip J. Shepherd to produce business and bank records sought by Coleman’s office.

A potential class-action lawsuit was filed in Jefferson County on April 30, and several Kentucky homeowners have filed lawsuits of their own, both before the closure and since.

Lexington Blue denied wrongdoing and moved for dismissal of the potential class-action case on May 20, saying the company has gone out of business. But Lexington Blue has not filed for bankruptcy protection; neither has owner Brad Pagel.

Pagel has not responded to repeated requests for comment, including efforts made today. His attorneys also have not responded.

Kenyon Matthews, who lives in Masterson Station in north Lexington, is one of eight Lexington Blue customers who told the Herald-Leader they were defrauded and repeatedly lied to.

“Honestly, (Pagel) should be in prison,” Matthews said. “This is a really organized effort by some really unethical and immoral people. This is definitely organized crime — too many people involved who covered it up.”

Matthews has been trying to get answers for months. He signed a contract with Lexington Blue and turned over a nearly $7,600 deposit from his insurance company last September.

“They started out real professional,” Matthews said. “But once they got their deposit check, they just disappeared.”

Lexington Blue did, however, contact his insurance company and ask for supplemental costs. The roofers told Matthews those costs had been approved, but the insurance company had denied additional payments.

“They were trying to get more money from me,” he said.

He went to their offices on Pasadena Drive and confronted staff who “pretty much lied to me about everything that was going on. ... They set an installation date twice, and they never showed up.”

He asked for his deposit back, but never got a response.

On May 13, Fayette County Sheriff’s Deputies seized two white vehicles from the Lexington Blue property in a separate homeowner’s case.

According to the notice taped to the door of the office at 287 Pasadena Drive , they were seized after a December 2024 default judgment in favor of a Lexington man who is owed nearly $6,000. But the vehicles turned out to be leased and now the sheriff’s office has placed a seizure order on the contents of Lexington Blue’s offices.

Several of the blue cars, which were also leased, have disappeared from the office parking lot. One that remained had several kick-sized dents in one door.

With Lexington Blue gone out of business, customers are wondering if they will ever get any money back. Pagel appears to have left Lexington and his company’s mounting debts behind.

It’s unclear exactly how many more homeowners have been impacted. Some formed a Facebook group, Lexington Blue Lawsuit, to keep tabs on developments. It has more than 50 members as of May 27.

“I think there are so many families that have been financially impacted by this,” Matthews said. “It was definitely organized. They all lied to me. They all covered. They knew what was going on.”

What former Lexington Blue employees say

Several former Lexington Blue employees told the Herald-Leader that Lexington Blue had a pattern: Constantly hire new sales reps, give them some training, pressure them into selling as many new roofs as possible, and then delay building the roof until the sales rep left, so Pagel wouldn’t have to pay out their full commission.

Alex Sekulic, a former sales rep who was promoted to lead a sales team, said that in his time at Lexington Blue, only two or three of the dozen or so roofs that he sold were actually put on.

“The general manager would tell you repeatedly they were working on it ... but I’m pretty sure they never had any intention to put a roof on. They just wanted to build a pipeline of money,” Sekulic said. “I’d rather the truth be out there: They’re shady, they committed insurance fraud, and they cheated customers.”

Another Lexington Blue sales rep, Shane Magness, who also became a team manager, confirmed that most of the time, his clients never got their roofs.

Magness said during his time at Lexington Blue, he got 30 to 40 jobs approved by insurers. How many of those roofs got built?

Only two or three, he said.

“It was a constant struggle,” he said. “I wanted to make sure the stuff got on, wanted the homeowners to get taken care of. ... They were not getting put on.”

Magness said he targeted neighborhoods with larger homes because the insurance would pay more, especially if the roof was steep. The majority of roofs he booked were for $15,000 or more, but he never got the promised 10% commission on most of them, he said.

Another sales rep, Taylor Stokes, broke his leg falling off a ladder while doing a home inspection. For a while, Lexington Blue continued to pay him commissions, but then the checks began to bounce, and finally they stopped altogether.

“I had a good idea why: They’re really bad at money management, and (the owner) Brad’s too greedy to help keep his business afloat,” Stokes said.

He estimated that only about two-thirds of the 150 roofs he sold during his 18 months at Lexington Blue were actually built.

“It slowed down in July 2023. People would call a lot, call me everything but my name, asking where their roof was,” Stokes said.

“I found out that it was (Lexington Blue’s) fault. When I turned a check in, it would go toward somebody’s roof from months ago. The bigger the house, the longer it took. When I quit (in November), they were installing a roof from a year before.”

Damaging shingles for a sale

Sekulic and Magness said they’ve also been contacted by insurance investigators about Lexington Blue’s practices.

Those practices sometimes involved damaging roofs themselves, they said.

“Lexington Blue has a history of deliberately damaging shingles to force a sale. ... They would teach us how to peel back shingles. If you need to make a quick sale, take an old roof, crease it, and you’ve got a customer,” Sekulic said.

That’s what Brenda Goldsborough, of Lexington, suspects happened with the roof of her house on Old Richmond Road.

“The wind blew some shingles off, but I did not have a leak until Lexington Blue showed up,” Goldsborough said. She climbed on her roof and found a spot where the shingle was missing down to the wood, “and the wood looked new.”

The Herald-Leader showed Goldsborough’s photo to Sekulic, who confirmed that the shingle damage appeared to be man-made.

“Shingles don’t tear horizontally. They tear vertically in the wind,” Sekulic said. Goldsborough’s shingle was torn straight across.

Goldsborough and her husband, Stuart, paid Lexington Blue a nearly $5,600 deposit in October 2024 to fix their roof. When a big rainstorm hit right afterward, the Goldsboroughs called Lexington Blue, and someone came out to put a tarp on her roof.

That was the last time she saw them.

When another check for nearly $10,000 arrived in the mail from their insurance company, the Goldsboroughs were puzzled; Lexington Blue told them it was for supplemental costs and that someone would be by to pick up the extra money.

In fact, Brenda Goldsborough said, Lexington Blue had told their insurer the roof work had been completed. “Thank God we didn’t give them that check,” she said. The tarp “was the only thing that they did.”

After six weeks of no action and no response to repeated phone calls, the Goldsboroughs sent a termination order through their attorney in mid-November 2024 to cancel the contract and paid someone else to fix their leaking roof.

“Yeah, they’re dirty,” she said of Lexington Blue.

In March 2025, the couple also filed a lawsuit in Fayette Circuit Court in an attempt to get back their deposit. But so far, Lexington Blue has not responded.

“Haven’t heard another word,” she said.

Other Lexington Blue debts

At least three vendors who sold roofing materials to Lexington Blue have also sued for non-payment. A Florida company alleges it’s owed more than $70,000, a Kentucky company says it is owed almost $50,000, and an Arizona supplier says it’s owed more than $43,000.

Forward Financing of Boston was one of those lucky enough to get its debt paid off by Pagel: The company placed a lien on Pagel’s Lexington home after it was awarded a judgment for nearly $180,000 in 2024. The claim was lifted in February 2025, indicating that the debt was paid around the time his Beaumont home sold.

One company, Elite Graphics in Lexington, was taken by Lexington Blue for both payment and a roof. Owner Dave Orwick said Lexington Blue owes his company more than $21,000 for print work, including lettering on vehicles and signage.

Orwick said he received a check from Lexington Blue, but when he went to cash it, there was a stop payment on it.

A few weeks ago, a limb went through the roof of his garage, and Lexington Blue general manager Alex Southwell offered to have the company fix the roof as a kind of peace offering, while Orwick waited for the check to clear.

Now, he said, he doesn’t have the money or the roof repairs.

‘This is my retirement money’

When Lexington Blue announced its closure on April 26, some homeowners were so upset, they showed up at the company’s office in South Lexington.

But Pagel and his staff were long gone.

On the Monday after Greg Dempsey received the closing letter from Lexington Blue, he drove over from Frankfort to see what he could find out.

A sales representative for Lexington Blue had come to his neighborhood in September 2024. Dempsey remembers the blue trucks with logos, and how professional everything seemed.

Like many of his neighbors, Dempsey had roof damage from a bad storm in March.

“They said, ‘We can probably get your insurance to cover it’ ... which they did,” Dempsey said. He had to file the claim and sign a contract, and he gave the company $4,000 in October.

“They said it would be six to eight weeks before I would have my roof done,” he said.

They never showed up.

Dempsey called in November, and they said they’d had bad weather and the schedule was delayed. He called again this past February and didn’t get a response.

He finally reached his original sales rep, who said he’d left the company because they weren’t paying him.

“That was a big red flag,” Dempsey said. “I finally got an email saying I’m scheduled for the end of April.”

Then the next letter: Lexington Blue had closed “after more than two years of persistent financial strain, including defaults on all credit lines and loans.”

“My heart sank. That doesn’t sound good. I may not see my money,” Dempsey said. “It won’t keep food off my table, but it might for some people. That is my retirement money.”

‘Stealing from my family’

Lexington homeowner Tammy Books thought she was getting a refund.

She and her husband, Steven, signed a contract with Lexington Blue in March 2024 after a hailstorm damaged their roof.

“We had a knock at the door, and an offer to check the roof and sure enough they find damage, and say, ‘We can get you a new roof,’” she said. “They took a piece off to match the shingles, they said.”

After her insurance company paid her nearly $9,000, she gave it to Lexington Blue, who said they would be back in a few weeks. But nothing ever happened. She called several times and eventually stopped by the company’s office.

“They kept hiding from us. They’d act like they weren’t there,” she said.

Finally in December, she and Steven waited in the freezing parking lot until the employees unlocked the door to let in a DoorDash food delivery.

She confronted a man in the office, who told the Books they’d fallen through the cracks after their sales rep left, and he agreed to issue them a full refund for $8,536.95 ... but they’d have to come back in six weeks, when he could have a cashier’s check ready.

Even though they had their doubts, they took his signed refund agreement and left. But in six weeks, they were told they’d have to wait 90 days instead. Lexington Blue ran out the clock.

“They lied to me. Lied right to my face,” she said. “I think it was a con job from the very beginning.”

Now she doesn’t know where to turn.

“I’m devastated. We’re not rich,” Tammy Books said. “It’s stealing from my family. People shouldn’t be able to do this to people.”

In limbo between Lexington Blue, bank

Lexington homeowner Andrew Cecil feels caught between a rock and a hard place. After nearly a year of fighting with his insurance company, he’d finally gotten money to fix his leaking roof, which had been under a tarp for months.

He also borrowed from his mortgage company to cover other costs. He signed a contract with Lexington Blue in February 2025 and gave them about $4,500.

“They kept pushing us off,” he said. “They finally said at the end of April we’d get a new roof. Then they sent out a mass email indicating the company is closing.”

That first email said a local subcontractor would be in touch about picking up Lexington Blue’s unfinished jobs, so Cecil had some hope. Then came a second email saying the contractor had bowed out.

But it was another paragraph that caught Cecil’s eye: The one threatening that if customers canceled their contracts, Lexington Blue could keep their deposits.

“In this situation, I find it very shady to throw that on you, since they are the ones not following through on the contract,” Cecil said. “If you have any idea you’re not going to be able to fulfill your contract, you should automatically give 100% of your deposit back.”

Cecil said his bank won’t loan him any more money unless he terminates the existing Lexington Blue contract and finds another roofer.

“We’re in limbo, as far as when we can get our roof repaired. ... If I do send a termination letter, they’re not going to send our money back. I don’t think they have any intention of sending the money back,” Cecil said.

“Do I cancel with them, because I feel like it’s lost anyway? Or do I hold on and let my roof become more in disrepair? Every time there’s a storm, there are shingles in the yard.”

Damage to home by Lexington Blue roofers

For homeowners who wish Lexington Blue would just fix their roof, Debbie Kirsch Coe has one word: Don’t.

They “fixed” hers, she says — but in reality, they caused thousands of dollars in damage to her house.

In July 2023, the roof of Coe’s home near Andover was damaged by hail. One day in September, a Lexington Blue sales rep came to her door and offered a free roof inspection.

The company said it could help get her claim through insurance if she signed a contract. She did, and she gave them the first payment from her insurance — more than $9,800.

“They cashed the check the next day,” she said.

Work was supposed to start in four weeks, and then she was supposed to pay them the rest. But nothing happened.

Coe called and left messages. Meanwhile, her husband, Perry, was dying of early-onset Alzheimer’s in memory care.

Finally, in December 2023, she got a message saying they would start the next day. She expressed concern: Wasn’t it too cold to put on a roof?

But they came anyway, and they told her it would be a one-day job.

“It took 4 1/2 days,” Coe said. “On Christmas Eve they were out there ... that last night, there were four of them putting on shingles by a cell phone light. It was ridiculous from start to finish.”

The job was poorly done, Coe said. In some places, shingles were held on by only one nail. The roofers damaged her gutters and destroyed an awning that shaded her patio, she said.

An independent inspector has since recommended a new roof, gutters and downspouts, as well as replacing rotting wood that Lexington Blue shingled over. The final quote: More than $31,000.

“And since the insurance had already paid me (for Lexington Blue’s shoddy work), all of that would be out of pocket,” Coe said.

But Lexington Blue wasn’t finished: They sent another claim to her insurance for $46,000 “to fix their own mistakes,” Coe said. “The insurance company called me and said, ‘What is this claim?’”

“That was (Lexington Blue) trying to fraud you into 46,000 extra dollars,” she told them.

Now that her husband has passed, Coe said she’d thought about selling her house. But she can’t sell without either fixing the roof or disclosing the damage to the seller.

“I just want my roof and house fixed. It’s the right thing.”

This story was originally published May 27, 2025 at 12:44 PM.

Janet Patton

Lexington Herald-Leader

859-379-5233

Janet Patton covers restaurants, bars, food and bourbon for the Herald-Leader. She is an award-winning business reporter who also has covered agriculture, gambling, horses and hemp. Support my work with a digital subscription