Arizona contractor grilled at bankruptcy hearing

New at 9, we are hearing the first on-camera statements from the owner of a valley construction company accused of taking money from clients and then never finishing the work they paid for. Yeah, after a Fox 10 investigator started looking into these claims, the company filed for bankruptcy. Fox 10 investigator Nicole Christine joins us now with the latest. Nicole. Yeah, Brandon Holtzman, he's the owner of Holtzman Construction, Remodeling, and two other related LLCs. He spoke under oath at a bankruptcy hearing this morning as clients grilled him on his business practices. Would you state your full name for the record now that you're sworn in? Brandon Scott Holtzman. Holtzman construction owner Brandon Holtzman appearing with his lawyer for a Chapter 7 bankruptcy hearing Monday morning. As 50% owner of the company, with the other 50% owned by a Danny Holtzman, Brandon Holtzman spent most of the hearing pointing to a specific salesperson and a specific operations manager as the reason the company was unable to finish numerous projects. You've got a whole bunch of people on the line right now whose projects were not completed. What happened? The gist of what happened was is that the there was one person in the company that was selling large projects to multiple homeowners. He sold the jobs based on them not being profitable to take a commission for himself and his. And the operations manager allowed them to go through the actual system showing that they weren't profitable and that's basically what happened. And the system Holtzman describes is one he himself created. Is that not a commercially available program? It is not. Holtzman said leadership became aware of its inability to pay debts two weeks before filing bankruptcy on October 2nd. He said at that time, the company was not taking in any funds from new projects, but was taking progress payments for ongoing projects. Several clients and subcontractors grilling Holtzman about their individual projects and payments. And when I contacted Pinellas County on my permit, You hadn't talked to him for months, and they had some questions on my permit, but you... Took my check. Why did you take on a project for a disabled vet and took a large deposit for us? Why were we not notified that you weren't able to even start our project, but yet you were still taking our deposit money? The company, as stated, Thank you, everyone, for being here, and thank you. I ran into, um, Difficulties and it was unexpected. Also during the hearing, Holtzman was asked if he is operating any other construction companies anywhere else and he said he is not. But our investigation has shown a Brandon Scott Holtzman is tied to a Holtzman Construction LLC out of California, which still shows an active contracting license on the California State License Board website. You can watch our other coverage on Holtzman over on fox10phoenix.com. Live in studio tonight, Nicole Christine, Fox 10 News.