Candace Gauvin had never met anyone like John O’Brien before. The Dublin contractor walked up to her front door on a chilly spring day in 2024.
Gauvin (74), a retired school crossing guard and recently widowed woman living in New England, was at the time sweeping the front steps of the Rhode Island home her grandfather built and where she had lived since she was three years old.
She told The Irish Times that she was charmed initially and taken aback by his “brogue”. She had long had an affinity for Ireland and O’Brien (28) – small of stature and described in court documents as having fair skin and “reddish balding hair” – appeared to be showing genuine kindness and concern.
Her front stairs were “soft and bouncy” and O’Brien was afraid she might “fall right through”, she recalls of her encounter with the Irish man. He handed her a brochure for his contracting company.
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But what O’Brien advertised as a legitimate business was later determined to be part of a scheme in which O’Brien conned more than 100 New England homeowners out of an estimated $2.6 million (€2.2 million) in unnecessary and fraudulent building repairs in the 3½ years since his arrival to the United States.
He entered the country with his family on a tourist visa in 2021 and supported a lavish lifestyle for his wife and three children until he was arrested in March 2025 by Homeland Security Investigations agents who are part of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice).
Agents arrested O’Brien with a ledger detailing $1.5 million (€1.3 million) in fraudulent transactions – the amount O’Brien pleaded guilty to. He was also arrested with two phones, on which O’Brien was discovered to be bragging about his exploits in a group chat, sharing a video of one victim writing him a cheque for $90,000.
“That’s money for nothing,” O’Brien wrote to his associates.
In Rhode Island’s federal courthouse on Tuesday, O’Brien was sentenced to more than four years in prison. He is expected to be deported back to Ireland after he completes his sentence.
US attorney Charles C Calenda, who prosecuted the case, said O’Brien’s scheme “was not just fraudulent; it was predatory”, adding that it reflected “a broader pattern of individuals known as ‘travelling con men’ who cross state lines for the purpose of defrauding victims”.
“O’Brien preyed on unsuspecting homeowners in Rhode Island and Massachusetts by posing as a skilled tradesman and contractor – someone they could trust,” said Jeffrey Grimming, the Homeland Security Investigations special agent overseeing the case.
“Instead, this con man fleeced homeowners of upwards of $1 million while inflicting substantial damage to their homes.”
In the case of one victim, Grimming said, O’Brien used his Irish background “to build a rapport with an elderly veteran in Warwick, Rhode Island over their shared Irish heritage only to extort him for tens of thousands of dollars in unnecessary home repairs”.
Gauvin attended Tuesday’s court hearing as one of eight victims who offered victim impact statements. She described to the court how after offering a $9,000 estimate to repair her stairs, O’Brien ended up extracting $90,000 from Gauvin, with his cement additions quickly crumbling, leaving her with nothing but an infestation of ants.
She told the court she lost her retirement nest egg as a result of O’Brien.
“I have nothing now,” she said.
After she spoke she sat down and listened in disbelief as O’Brien, wearing a beige jump suit, stood crying. He said he had been “foolish” and apologised for ruining the lives of his victims. He said he would continue praying for a “financial miracle” for his victims while he was behind bars.
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O’Brien’s case never went to trial. He was initially facing up to 20 years in prison, but reached a plea deal for a maximum 56-month sentence.
US District Court chief judge John J McConnell Jr told victims: “Please don’t let a bad actor who victimised you turn your heart or turn your trust away.”
At Tuesday’s hearing, prosecutors set out how O’Brien deceived victims as a calculating criminal.
“This isn’t the type of crime that one commits in moments of desperation; it takes careful planning and co-ordination,” prosecutor Taylor Dean told the court.
The court heard that when O’Brien arrived in the US, he was able to secure fake payslips so he and his family could rent a home; he knew someone who could make fake reviews for fake businesses and jewellers to help launder money.
O’Brien’s defence attorney Todd A Spodek painted a different picture of the Dubliner, saying he is a not sophisticated criminal but dropped out of school at 15 and started a young family who he struggled to support with landscaping work.
Before sentencing, Spodek submitted more than a dozen character statements on behalf of O’Brien, who does not have a criminal record.
In a letter to the judge, O’Brien’s father, John O’Brien Sr of Ballyfermot, Dublin described his son as “a soft man” who had stayed away from crime, despite his upbringing being riddled with “gangs of youths always looking for young lads to bully”.
Putting O’Brien in “prison is like putting a goldfish in a shark tank”, his younger brother Thomas O’Brien told the judge.
Irish Senator Eileen Flynn, an Independent, wrote of O’Brien’s “kindness and strength of character” and asked the court for his early release for the “benefit of his young family”.
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The letters seeking leniency for O’Brien stand in contrast to the case made by prosecutors, victim impact statements and interviews with his victims.
All depict a more disturbing picture, including unsolicited home visits by O’Brien, small contracting jobs that led to additional costs and claims about him discovering additional damage that allegedly needed repairing and then his targeting groups of neighbours.
That’s how it started with Candace Gauvin.
O’Brien estimated that it would cost $9,000 to fix her stairs; he ended up charging her $21,000, then he discovered the balustrades on the side of her stairs needed fixing, the cement columns under her porch needed support, her walkway was cracked and he replaced it with cobblestones.
He told her he had an ominous dream that her home fell over – a story that made her further concerned.
Later she figured he “must have kissed the Blarney Stone” given the way he was able to twist his words and convince her to hand over her life savings.
She explained to him she was a widow on social welfare payments and that she would have to go into her pension to pay for the repairs.
“And he says: ‘Well, I can come back tomorrow and you let me know,’” Gauvin recalls.
The last straw was when she told O’Brien she did not want him to fix the foundation of her home and she came home to find workers in her basement.
“That’s when I said to them: ‘No, that’s it – I said no more money, please leave me alone.’ Then he came back a couple more times. He was just a pest; I couldn’t get rid of him.”
Gauvin is still unsure whether she will ever get her money back.
O’Brien collected an estimated $2.6 million. A property he owns in Oakengates, Telford in England and two luxury cars will be liquidated to repay his victims. Investigators have yet to track down any other assets.
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When O’Brien first approached Gauvin, she told him she was saving up for a trip to Ireland that had always been on her “bucket list” given her distant Irish ancestry.
“Now I don’t know if I want to go or not,” she says. “I don’t know if I can afford it.”
