Desiree Ortiz stands outside her home in Parker on Tuesday, July 30, 2024. (Justin Wingerter/BusinessDen)
“I’ve had two people ruin my life in the last couple of years,” said Alex Uskokovic.
The first was a stoned driver who, on Thanksgiving 2022, crashed through the fence of his Weld County home, hit a gas line and set his house on fire, killing his dog.
The second was a man who was paid $310,000 to rebuild that house, and didn’t.
Major Morgan III, who lived in Castle Pines until recently, has taken deposits from dozens of Colorado homeowners and business owners but not finished their projects, a review of civil court and bankruptcy court documents shows. An exact tally of the amount that he owes is not easily calculable but is likely in the millions of dollars, according to court records.
“There are at least four county prosecutors and one state looking into how he handled his business affairs,” Tom Connolly, the trustee who is overseeing Morgan’s bankruptcy case, said during a meeting between Morgan and 35 of his alleged victims on July 17.
“You are going to have to explain where all of these people’s money went,” he told Morgan.
‘Taking away my dream’
One day last fall, Tenley Bakley met a man — “very well put-together, drove a nice Mercedes, very buttoned-up” — who said that he was a fellow Christian and a fellow parent with a passion for helping new business owners like herself. And then he offered to build out her spray tan studio in Castle Rock for $20,000 cheaper than everyone else.
Spray, a tanning studio in Castle Rock, opened in late June. (Courtesy Spray)
“At the end of the day, we hired Major because $20,000 is $20,000,” Bakley said.
Three months later, when the project was supposed to be done, there were no permits and no work had been completed. Bakley was forced to lay off employees she had hired, empty out a 401(k), and hire another contractor. The studio, Spray, finally opened in late June.
“The business is starting more in the red than I planned,” she said, “because of him.”
Paul Brunner has a different looking dream: The PIT, or Paulie’s Institute of Technology. A biker club and coffeehouse in Idaho Springs, where Brunner lives. Something for the civil engineer to do, and a way to make money, after he retires in a dozen years or so.
“A place where you can go hang out and work on cars, drink a beer, smoke a cigarette, watch a game if there are no cars to work on, just hang out with like-minded people,” he said.
Earlier this year, Brunner went looking for contractors to build the detached garage that will house The PIT. Only one drove into the foothills to meet him: “A nice looking young fella” whose price was half of what the other contractors wanted. So, he hired Morgan.
“I told Major, ‘This is the last of my money, man. If you screw me on this, you’re taking away my dream,’” Brunner recalled saying. “And he said, ‘No, don’t worry, it’s not like that.’”
Morgan asked for $9,000 upfront — “He was saying that he got engaged and just had a kid, so he needs the money” — but never built the garage, putting Brunner’s dream on hold.
‘It is a shame’
Soon after they hired Morgan, Bakley and Brunner both received phone calls from a woman in Parker they did not know: Desiree Ortiz. She had asked Morgan for references and he had provided the names Bakley and Brunner, before starting on their projects.
So, after Bakley fired Morgan, “A little lightbulb goes off in my head,” the tanning studio owner recalls, “and I think, ‘I need to contact that Desiree chick and see what’s going on.’”
Ortiz, it turns out, had paid Morgan $170,000 to build a swimming pool and deck, with little to show for it. The pool and deck were never built and her money never refunded.
“I couldn’t see myself living in a world where someone could do this and get away with it,” Ortiz remembers thinking after listening to the similar stories of Bakley and Brunner.
Major Morgan III at a virtual meeting with creditors in his bankruptcy case on July 17, 2024.
So, she investigated. The mother of three estimates spending 50 hours finding other people who lost money to Morgan — by phone, on social media, in-person — and talking with law enforcement. In doing so, she formed an unlikely community of Coloradans.
“We all have our moments where we are like, ‘I can’t believe this happened to me, how did I let this happen?’” said Bakley. “There are doctors in the group, there are very wealthy and successful professionals, people who you wouldn’t think would get duped.”
In the past year, a half-dozen people along the Front Range have sued Morgan and his company, M3 Designs, accusing them of abandoning projects or doing poor work. Claims in the six cases, which span geographically from Larimer to Douglas counties, range from $41,245 to $450,000. The work includes landscaping, windows, remodeling and a demolition.
“We paid him twice, in an amount of $38,959,” David Barnes, the executive director of Heartland Mental Health in Denver, said during last month’s meeting of creditors. “We serve mentally ill patients here. We got a grant with federal funds that M3 Designs did not fulfill.”
“I see everyone on this call, and I feel for everyone on this call,” said Barnes, whose nonprofit is not among those suing Morgan. “It is a shame that we all have to go through this.”
‘Get rich era’
The Coloradans who are owed money by Morgan consider it an insult to injury that his fiancee, a prolific poster on TikTok with 32,000 followers and millions of likes, has formed a habit of filming videos about the luxury goods that Morgan has bought for her: Homes, handbags, Hawaiian vacations, front-row seats, cosmetic surgeries, clothes, cash a Mercedes.
“This is definitely my ‘get prettier, have fun & get rich’ era,” she says in one video.
In another, she boastfully displays a $105,000 check written to M3 Designs and refers to herself and Morgan as a new generation of millionaires. For the men and women who wrote checks to M3 like the one that she showcased, the videos can be frustrating to watch.
“I have a house that can’t pass inspection,” says Uskokovic, who is living in an Airbnb because Morgan didn’t finish his home in Evans, “and Major is out in Nashville with his fiancee and her TikTok showing off diamond rings and receipts from designer warehouses.”
It was a TikTok video in May that revealed the fiancee, Destiny Ruden, and Morgan had left the state. “We’re moving to Nashville! Goodbye Colorado see ya never,” she wrote in the post, alongside laughing and celebrating emojis. The move shocked Morgan’s clients.
“I heard from a contractor, ‘Oh, he’s gone. He’s moved to Nashville.’ I was like, ‘What?! What is going on?’” Uskokovic recalls. “That’s when Major told me he filed for bankruptcy.”
Several people who Morgan owes money to say they would like to see him prosecuted for theft, to send a message that what he did was wrong. But that could have unintended consequences, according to Connolly, the bankruptcy case’s trustee.
“If Mr. Morgan is convicted of a crime, he may serve time,” he said in July. “That would maybe make you feel emotionally better, but it won’t get you paid. That’s the reality.”
Morgan, who did not answer an interview request sent to his bankruptcy attorney, allegedly left Uskokovic with a partly built house and only $70,000 in remaining insurance money.
“I just got a quote from a contractor,” Uskokovic said. “They want $225,000 to complete my house. I’m like, ‘Why? Why is it so much?’ And they said there are a lot of defects.”
