Texas Couple Gets Prison Time After Defrauding More Than 40 Home-Building Clients
A Fort Worth couple who admitted to defrauding customers through their home-building company has been sentenced to federal prison and ordered to pay nearly $2.8 million in restitution.
Christopher Judge, 35, and Raquelle Judge, 36, pleaded guilty in December 2025 to conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
On Sept. 1, Senior U.S. District Judge Terry R. Means sentenced Christopher to 78 months, or six and a half years, in federal prison, followed by two years of supervised release. Raquelle received a one-month prison sentence, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas.
Both were ordered to pay $2,794,680.73 in restitution.
Customers Paid for Projects That Were Never Finished
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The Judges managed Judge DFW LLC, which marketed custom architecture, construction and interior design services.
Prosecutors say that from about August 2020 through January 2023, the company offered bids that were below market to customers across half a dozen North Texas counties. Customers then signed design-and-build contracts and made installment payments. However, the Judges failed to complete most of the projects. Sometimes, they abandoned them entirely.
Court records cited by the U.S. Attorney’s Office show more than 40 victims across at least 24 construction projects, with estimated losses of approximately $4.2 million.
The couple also admitted to falsely presenting Christopher as a licensed architect. Prosecutors say customer payments were commingled—or mixed together—in Judge DFW’s main operating account, and that money from some customers was actually used to pay for unrelated construction projects.
One Victim Says the Sentencing Brings Some Closure
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas says the FBI’s Fort Worth Resident Agency and Euless Police Department investigated the case with assistance from the U.S. Secret Service.
Fort Worth homeowner Kristin Newman previously told People that she hired the Judges for work on her bungalow. Progress remained slow, so she brought in an outside inspector. Newman claimed the resulting report unearthed extensive problems with the construction itself. More specifically, it resulted in a “100-page report of everything that was wrong.”
Following the sentencing, Newman told People that the outcome “does close a chapter that has been painful,” although she said she was disappointed by Raquelle’s one-month sentence.
