I laughed this morning when a neighbor retracted her recommendation of a handyman she had been using for years. It turns out the handyman, Lee Pope from Precision Plumbing and Cooling, had switched from handyman work to robbing banks, becoming known to the FBI as the “Repeat Robber.” Pope was arrested Monday on suspicion of robbing over a dozen banks in the Triangle. It’s sad when a good guy turns bad. Perhaps the handyman trade wasn’t working out for him.

Before his arrest Pope drew praise for his handyman work. Said one customer:

We have been using Lee’s company for years now. He has replaced our furnace, AC, fixed pipes and we are getting ready to have him redo all the plumbing in our house. He is excellent and reasonable.

Once news broke of his arrest, the customer changed her tune:

I would like to retract this recommendation. For the past 6 years he did close to $10K worth of work for us and was always here when it was icy or 110 degrees and something was broken that needed fixed, fixed our friend’s AC for free, etc., I guess he hit bad times and went rogue.

I wonder if Pope had anything to do with the rash of copper thefts from AC units in the area. Hopefully police are following up on this, too.