COUSHATTA, La. -- A Red River Parish businessman faces multiple charges after he allegedly defrauded customers out of about $500,000.
Thomas Hoeflinger, 63, of Coushatta, was arrested Tuesday following an investigation by the Louisiana Bureau of Investigation, which is the investigative division of the Louisiana Attorney General’s Office. The Red River Parish Sheriff’s Office assisted with investigating and the arrest.
Hoeflinger owned the Quality Outdoor dealership in Coushatta. In July, he closed the business, leaving many customers and the bank with many outstanding financial disputes, Attorney General Liz Murrill said in a news release.
The subsequent investigation by the LBI identified numerous victims of theft and fraud, including previous customers of Hoeflinger’s dealership and a financial institution that funded the inventory purchases for retail sales.
As Quality Outdoors, Hoeflinger sold lawn equipment, tractors, generators, trailers, and other products to customers across the southern United States. Often, customers funded expensive purchases through their banking institutions, and Hoeflinger received the bank funds for payment of the purchased item, but never ordered the products from the manufacturer. This left the customer without delivery of the purchased item and obligated them to the bank financing they had arranged, Murrill said.
One example provided by Murrill related to the sale of a new tractor negotiated by Hoeflinger that included a used tractor as a trade-in allowance. Hoeflinger sold that tractor from his dealership and never paid off the customer’s trade-in. This left the customer financially responsible for the outstanding loan on the traded-in tractor and the newly purchased tractor, Murrill said.
In another case, Hoeflinger took one pickup truck in on consignment at Quality Outdoors. He sold it and paid the owner by check for the truck’s sale. However, the bank reported the account as having insufficient funds, and Hoeflinger did not compensate the vehicle's owner.
LBI interviewed several victims who purchased towing trailers and paid the licensing fees to register them with the state motor vehicle office but never received their registration. The investigation found that Hoeflinger charged the customers fees to cover the cost of the registration charges and misappropriated the funds himself, Murrill said, meaning those customers were left financially responsible for paying fees a second time to have the trailers registered as required by law.