Kevin Donald Norris, the former manager of Ray’s Automotive on Bainbridge Island, was arrested on December 29, 2014, for failure to appear in court. Norris had been summoned on charges of 3rd degree theft but did not show up for his hearing on November 4.
He is currently incarcerated in Kitsap County Jail with bail set at $50,000.
A police report shows that Norris, 52, was charged with allegedly taking payment from a customer for auto repair services that he claimed were completed but that evidence later showed were not.
A Bainbridge police investigation determined that on April 21, 2014, Norris charged a customer $582.63 for parts and labor for installation of a new water pump. When the customer continued having the same engine problems, she was unable to return to Ray’s Auto because the business had closed. She took her car to Bainbridge Island Auto Repair, where mechanics determined that her water pump had not been replaced and performed the needed repair. The customer reported the incident to the Bainbridge Police Department on August 8, 2014.
According to a police report, several other patrons of Ray’s Auto submitted similar complaints of being charged for services that were not actually rendered.
A former coworker of Norris, Nick Allen, told Inside Bainbridge that he left his job at Ray’s about three years ago after he discovered that Norris was “screwing over” customers. He described one incident in which Norris charged a customer $5,000 for replacing a transmission that he never actually replaced. Allen, who said his own family members were ripped off by Norris, told me he believed Norris had been swindling patrons for years to the tune of over $200,000. About Norris’s arrest, Allen said, “It couldn’t have happened to a better person.”
Norris’s next court date is scheduled for January 22 at 9 a.m. in the Kitsap Superior Courthouse.
Photo by Julie Hall.
