Florida Powerboat Builder Facing 32 Year Prison Term for Defrauding Customers in Six States
- BoatBlurb Contributor
- 13 hours ago
- 3 min read
A jury in Logan County, Ohio has found 51-year-old boat builder Todd Allen Lamb guilty on six counts of felony theft, one count of defrauding creditors, and one count of engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity.
The verdict comes after Lamb, owner of Spectre Powerboats in DeLand, Florida, faced trial for defrauding customers across six U.S. states related to deposits for boats that were never built.
He will be sentenced November 26th. He faces up to 32 1/2 years in prison.
Lamb, who relocated Spectre Powerboats to Florida in 2021 after previously operating out of Logan County, Ohio, was accused of soliciting deposits and then failing to deliver the promised boats or refunding the purchasers. Lamb operated a 26,000-square-foot manufacturing facility at DeLand Municipal Airport in Volusia County, Florida, at the time of his arrest.
According to court documents, the scheme spanned six states — Delaware, New Jersey, Georgia, Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee — and involved losses totaling nearly $1 million. One victim, identified as Terrance Weber, testified that Lamb accepted more than $270,000 USD for a custom 32-foot twin–outboard performance catamaran, including $80,000 for another vessel he traded in. Weber never received the boat he ordered, and his trade-in was never returned.
In a strange twist, it was Weber, a man defrauded by Lamb, who kickstarted a larger investigation when he was caught attempting to steal back the boat he'd traded in. Weber was arrested in December 2022 and pleaded no contest to burglary of an occupied structure earlier this year. He was sentenced to four years' probation, ordered not to post on social media about Lamb or his business, and pay Lamb $50,000 for damages related to the vessel in question, according to the Daytona Beach News Journal. Weber's outspoken social media presence about Lamb's activities eventually led to the discovery of multiple new victims.
“I traded in my boat and handed over $50,000 for damage to go toward the new build,” Weber told the court, “but I never got the boat and I never saw the money again.”
"It just doesn't make any sense. They made Todd the victim when I was the one he stole from," Weber told the Daytona Beach News Journal. "Why would I damage the boat that I was going to keep?"
Lamb's ex-wife, Karen Nicole Lamb, was also indicted in Ohio in September 2024 on nine counts related to the scheme. Her case is still pending.
The prosecution presented evidence showing that between 2017 and 2024 Lamb diverted customer funds into other business expenses, put money towards loans to family members and real-estate purchases, and did not complete the boats or return deposits when customers began questioning his practices.
According to Yahoo News, Logan County, Ohio court documents showed that between December 2017 and June 2020 the Lambs "deprived an Ohio man of property and services" by stealing $143,650 along with two Mercury outboard engines.
From February 2018 to October 2018, the Lambs reportedly stole $209,339 from another Ohio man in a similar arrangement.
A third Ohio man lost $300,462 to the Lambs. In all three instances, the money was to go towards new powerboats built by Lamb.
"They never got their boats and they did not get their money back," said Logan County prosecutor Eric Stewart.
Lamb also has a conviction dating back to 2013 relating to a construction equipment theft ring. He was indicted on 13 charges in that case, although his sentence was sealed by the court. He was charged in 2011 with illegally possessing machine guns. In 2007, he was arrested and charged for firing a shot into the tire of a truck during a dispute over a vehicle cosigned to Lamb's company.
