Mechanic accused of swindling senior in Ferndale facing felony

Mar 05, 2024

A mechanic with a criminal history is set to be arraigned for trial Monday after Ferndale police say he bilked a truck owner, 74, out of nearly $5,000 for work the suspect never performed.

Suspect Jason Fettig, 46, is free on a $5,000, 10 percent, bond following his arraignment in Ferndale 43rd District Court on a charge of larceny by conversion July 17.

A former Ferndale resident who now lives in Warren, Fettig was stopped by Warren police for a traffic violation a day earlier and arrested on the outstanding warrant.

Ferndale police said they are concerned there may be other victims Fettig scammed.

Police said the Ortonville truck owner who was swindled made a report at the Ferndale police station back in March.

Fettig advertised himself on Facebook as a diesel engine mechanic. The older man had recently bought a 2010 International commercial truck and first contacted Fettig back in January.

Fettig quoted him a price of $3,800 to repair the engine, said Ferndale police Public Information Officer Jillian Mahlmeister.

The truck owner had the vehicle towed to the parking lot of the apartment building where Fettig was living in Ferndale and dropped it off, police said.

Fettig told the owner he worked out of a rented space at a nearby repair shop and was waiting for a space there to open up, police said.

“The victim from February through mid-March had paid the (suspect) $4,600,” Mahlmeister said.

Then the truck owner on March 17 got a notice from the Secretary of State’s Office that his truck had been towed as an abandoned vehicle from the apartment building parking lot where Fettig had lived at 1200 W. Nine Mile Road.

“The victim was shocked when he got the notice,” Mahlmeister said. “He reached out to (Fettig) and never heard back from him.”

After picking up the truck, the owner found no work had been done on the vehicle.

With towing charges and money the owner sent the suspect through an app, he spent $6,600, police said.

From the time the owner dropped his truck off, police said, Fettig strung him along, first by offering to fix the engine at a lower-than-normal price, then texting him pictures that purportedly showed more repairs that needed to be done, including a cracked cylinder head, and required more money, Mahlmeister said.

But police said Fettig was just grabbing pictures from websites he found through Google searches as if he were doing work on the vehicle, police said.

The owner knew his truck needed repairs when he bought it because it had a seized engine.

Ferndale police went and interviewed Fettig at his former Ferndale apartment days after the owner filed a police report.

The suspect told police he was working at a couple places doing repair work.

“We followed up at the two locations where he said he worked and found he had not been working there,” Mahlmeister said.

Fettig moved to Warren soon after police interviewed him, she added.

Mahlmeister said if there are other people the suspect swindled they should report it to local police in the city where any transaction might have occurred or where they live.

“The victim in this case thought he was getting a good price” for repair work, she said. “If something is too good to be true it usually is.”

Fettig’s criminal history includes felony convictions for larceny in a building in Oakland County and two embezzlement cases in Macomb County in 2017, according to Michigan Department of Corrections records. He was convicted of possessing cocaine, less than 25 grams, in Wayne County and sentenced to probation this year.

Fettig is scheduled to be arraigned for trial before Oakland County Circuit Judge Daniel O’Brien at 8:30 a.m. Monday.

If convicted he faces up to five years in prison.

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