Mechanic still refusing to pay for damage to woman's car after judge’s order

A woman says a mechanic is refusing to pay for damaged he caused to her car even after a judge ordered him to pay the money.

SHAWNEE, Okla. (KFOR) — A woman says a mechanic is refusing to pay for damaged he caused to her car even after a judge ordered him to pay the money.

"I don't have the funds to keep investing in this car. I'm done."

News 4 first interviewed Cassie Beeson back in January, after she’d taken her car to mechanic roger Channon at Five Star Automotive in Shawnee.

She’d dropped her car at Channon’s shop back in November to have the timing chain replaced.

She paid him $700 for the repair up front. She said Channon told her the repair would take no more than a week.

She told News 4 Channon kept delaying the release of her car, giving her numerous excuses.

Finally in January, she had her car inspected by a different mechanic, who told her it appeared Channon had done more than just attempt to repair the timing chain, but damaged the engine to the point the car was undrivable and would take thousands of dollars to fix properly.

"It was a butcher job,” Beeson told News 4 in January.

News 4 caught up with Channon at his shop on in January, and asked him if he took apart more of Beeson’s engine than she authorized him to do.

“Well, yeah. When I seen all the sludge and stuff,” Channon told News 4. “The codes and stuff it all had in it had all the, uh, codes for the correlation. Everything was out of sync. Bad.”

He told News 4 the engine was covered in oil sludge and needed to be taken apart further and cleaned.

News 4 asked Channon, “Did you ask [Beeson] if she’d be okay with you doing that additional work?”

“Well, I wasn’t going to charge her any extra for that,” Channon responded. “She just went crazy.”

After that story aired, Beeson took Channon to small claims court.

A judge ruled in her favor in March.

“Basically, the judge said in the state of Oklahoma, if you do unauthorized work to a customer's vehicle, that you were responsible for any damages that occurred,” Beeson said.

On March 14, the judge handed down an order, telling Channon he had to pay Beeson $3965 for the damage he caused due to the unauthorized repairs.

Beeson said she thought she’d be made whole.

“I figured if a judge said you are ordered to pay something, that you had to pay it,” she said.

But so far, she says Channon has shown no signs he actually plans to pay her.

“I have numerous text messages asking him to please make arrangements to get it paid,” Beeson said. “And it shows that he's read the text message, but he hasn't responded.”

News 4 stopped by Channon’s shop again on Tuesday, and asked Channon why he hadn’t paid Beeson yet.

“She’s gonna have to talk to my lawyer,” Channon said.

“You have a lawyer,” News 4 asked in response.

“I did not destroy that engine,” Channon responded.

“Okay. But a judge ruled that you did. So… do you have a lawyer that you’ve retained,” News 4 asked.

“I'm talking to my lawyer,” Channon responded.

“What's their name,” News 4 asked.

“Everybody’ll find out,” Channon responded.

Channon went on to tell News 4 he was filing an appeal in the case. Court records show no appeals have been filed so far.

Right now, Beeson, her husband and daughter only have one vehicle to rely on.

“It's been a huge financial burden on us not having my vehicle because of what happened to it,” Beeson said.

She says she’s ready to take him back to court to do whatever necessary to get him to pay what he owes, but hopes she doesn’t have to resort to that.