A North Fort Myers pool and screen contractor has been booked into the Lee County jail on two felony fraud counts, and the state's own corporate register still lists both of the companies registered to him as active on the day after the arrest

The Lee County Sheriff's Office booked a North Fort Myers pool and screen contractor into the county jail on Wednesday night on two felony fraud counts, according to the agency's own public booking record.

The record gives the name as David Scott Noe, with a date of birth of August 9, 1970, and an address on Orange Grove Boulevard in North Fort Myers. The booking is numbered 1030198 and stamped 10.34 on the night of August 12.

Both counts are accusations. No court has convicted him of anything, no plea is recorded, and nothing in this item says an offence was committed.

What the charge record says

The agency publishes the charges alongside the booking, and the two rows are identical to each other except for the case number.

Each carries the offence code 831.02 and the description the record prints for it, fraud by uttering a false instrument. Each carries a bond of $25,000 on a cash or surety basis. Each is assigned to the circuit court, one under case number 26CF000443 and the other under 26CF000444, and both carry a hearing date of September 14.

The arresting agency is recorded as the Lee County Sheriff's Office.

One point is left open because the agency's own data leaves it open. The roster row, read on Thursday evening, still showed no release time and still described him as in custody. Both charge rows, read in the same minute, carry a bond disposition with a posted date of August 13. The posted date carries no hour on it. This desk does not resolve the difference and does not assert whether he is being held or has been released.

The companies are still listed active

The corporate side of this has not moved, and that is the part a homeowner should understand.

The Florida Division of Corporations lists SCREENWORKS CONTRACTORS OF SWFL, LLC, document number L21000363424, filed on August 12, 2021, with a status of ACTIVE. It lists SCREENWORKS CUSTOM POOLS LLC, document number L22000186774, filed on April 19, 2022, also ACTIVE.

Both filings name NOE, DAVID S as registered agent and as the authorised person, titled AMBR. Both give a principal address of 4939 Orange Grove Boulevard, North Fort Myers 33903, which is the same street address the jail record carries for the man booked on Wednesday. That shared address, in two state systems that do not talk to each other, is the basis for connecting the booking to the companies here, and it is stated rather than left implied.

Both companies filed their most recent annual report on April 30 of this year.

An arrest changes none of that. A criminal charge does not dissolve a limited liability company or strike its registration, so the ordinary result is exactly what the register shows this week: a charge in one place, an untouched active registration in another.

What ACTIVE on the state register does not mean

A status of ACTIVE on Sunbiz means one thing, which is that the entity exists and its filings are current.

It is not a licence. It is not a certification, an inspection, a bond, or any statement by the state of Florida about whether a business does good work or should be trusted with a deposit.

What is not established here

WINK News reported the arrest, and its investigations desk reported on the underlying complaints beforehand. The outlet describes nearly a dozen local families left with tens of thousands of dollars in losses and unfinished backyards. That description is the outlet's own and this desk has not independently verified the number of families or the sums.

Nothing is said here about any state contractor licence held by anyone named in this item, or about its status, or about any administrative review of one. That could not be established on the record available, and an unverified answer in either direction would be worse than none.

For a homeowner with money already committed, the useful check is the licence itself, held at the Department of Business and Professional Regulation, rather than a corporate registration, and Florida's construction lien rules on deposits and progress payments, which are written for precisely the case where the work stops and the money has gone.