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As a young cop patrolling the streets of South Philadelphia, Shawn Hagan kept the Internal Affairs Division busy.

Between 2008 and 2010, Hagan, then in his late 20s, racked up a half dozen citizen complaints with allegations of physical abuse, harassment, and making racial slurs.

The city’s Law Department handled the fallout, as Hagan was named as a defendant in six excessive-force and civil-rights lawsuits between 2009 and 2015 that would later cost taxpayers more than $400,000 in settlements.

In 2024, records show, Hagan retired from the police force and decided to try his hand as a home-improvement contractor.

Now, complaints and lawsuits are rolling in again — this time accompanied by criminal charges involving the former officer’s company, Hagan Home Concepts.

Hagan, 46, is at the center of a sprawling, multijurisdictional fraud investigation that started in Bucks County and quickly spread to Delaware and Montgomery Counties.

Police in Bensalem, Upper Moreland, and Aston Townships have accused him over the last month of defrauding at least five families out of a combined $255,291 for doing a fraction of the work he had promised.

In some cases, according to court filings, he allegedly failed to use money given to him to pay for inspections, permits, and building materials.

Hagan, who lives in Northeast Philadelphia, is facing felony counts of theft, deceptive business practices, receiving stolen property, and related offenses in those cases. Police believe there may be more victims who have not yet been identified.

Neither Hagan nor his criminal defense attorney, Jeremy-Evan Alva, responded to requests for comment last week.

In January, Christopher Bilbao, who hired Hagan last year, moved out of the Levittown home he shares with his wife and three children as Hagan allegedly botched a major renovation for which they’d paid him $107,566.

Rainwater began pouring into the house. The electrical system was destroyed. Floor joists were left unsupported. The framing didn’t follow the architect’s specs. A township inspector found that Hagan used incorrect materials, didn’t follow measurements in the plans, and left the home uninhabitable.

“We’re still renting an apartment,” Bilbao said last week. “The whole house has been gutted. The way he left it, there was no roof on half the house. We’re hoping to get back home by Thanksgiving.”

Separate from the criminal cases, a Port Richmond man is suing Hagan in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court to recover $94,800 he said he’d paid him for a home renovation and addition that was never completed.

A similar pattern is alleged in the lawsuit: rotting wood studs, crooked foundation, tilted third floor.

Nadia Silk, the lawyer for that homeowner, said Hagan had initially told her client he’d refund his money.

“Then he just went radio silent,” Silk said. “He’s getting all this money, then not doing the work. Where’s it going?”

Silk said Hagan did not respond to the lawsuit.

Trail of destruction

The criminal investigation into Hagan Home Concepts began in May, when the Bilbaos reported to police that Hagan had essentially abandoned their project, which was estimated to cost $172,700 when completed.

Bensalem police began investigating a similar complaint, in which Hagan allegedly received $46,725 from a family for an addition to their house. He poured the foundation and never returned to complete more work, according to a police report.

In an interview with a Bensalem detective in May, Hagan said “he got in over his head and never intended to defraud” that family, the criminal complaint states.

A few days later, Hagan told an Upper Moreland Township detective nearly the same thing, according to the police report. The department was investigating a complaint from Kevin and Angela Duffy, who said he had abandoned a project at their home.

They had hired him in May 2025 to build an addition to their first floor and renovate their second floor and basement, according to the affidavit for his arrest. In five and half weeks of work, police say, Hagan and his employees were at the Duffys’ home only 29 hours, and concrete footers they had installed for the addition failed inspection.

Hagan told police he tried to return the $55,200 he collected from the family, but that it had been “absorbed into the business,” according to the affidavit.

The Duffys declined to comment for this article. They are trying to recoup their losses, plus damages, through a default judgment awarded to them in May by a Montgomery County judge.

A person familiar with the case said Hagan had been hired to build wheelchair-accessible bedrooms for the Duffys’ two children, who have an inherited neurodegenerative disorder. The family had to hire another contractor to complete the project.

Hagan was also charged with fraud last month in Delaware County. An Aston Police detective wrote in the criminal complaint that Hagan accepted $21,800 from Kate Mckenna-Delagol’s family “while knowing his business was failing.” Hagan was also aware that a criminal investigation was underway because he had been interviewed by detectives in Bucks County, according to Aston Police.

“He tells everybody he’s a Philly cop. That’s how he earns your trust,” Mckenna-Delagol said on Friday. She’d hired Hagan to build a deck, but “he never did anything.”

Hagan filed for bankruptcy in federal court in June, identifying three of the victims mentioned in the criminal filings as creditors, including the Duffy and Bilbao families.

All told, Hagan wrote that he owes $865,059, and that Hagan Home Concepts is no longer operating. His bankruptcy attorney, Michael Cibik, did not return a request for comment.

Bilbao said he had hired Hagan to work on his Levittown home after another family in the neighborhood was satisfied with a recent addition he’d built for their house.

But even that job, Bilbao said, was later determined to be faulty.

“Since then, the people that recommended him realized he did all this work incorrectly,” he said. “They’re having to redo it.”

History of police complaints

Sgt. Eric Gripp, a Philadelphia police spokesman, declined to provide details about Hagan’s disciplinary history as an officer, other than to say he was hired in November 2003 and retired in February 2024.

Citizen complaints show that Hagan was repeatedly accused of assaulting and harassing people while on patrol in South Philadelphia’s 17^th District.

In an April 2008 incident, for example, a man said Hagan grabbed him by the throat and dragged him to his police cruiser. Two months later, another man said Hagan used racial slurs while stopping him.

In January 2009, a complaint was filed against Hagan and his then-partner Kevin Corcoran for harassment and verbal abuse, then another that October for physical abuse. In 2010, a complainant said Hagan allegedly pushed him to the ground and called him a racial slur.

Hagan and Corcoran “received training and counseling” from two police captains in February 2009 “regarding their Internal Affairs record and professional responsibilities,” according to a note on one complaint.

Nonetheless, Internal Affairs investigators said the allegations in those cases were unfounded or not sustained, or they exonerated the officers altogether.

(Corcoran was fired in 2014 after he detained an Iraq War veteran, drove him to a dark side street near North Broad Street, then brought him back to Center City and released him. Corcoran was later acquitted of false imprisonment and official oppression, but convicted of a misdemeanor charge of obstruction of justice).

Between 2010 and 2015, Hagan was named as a defendant in three lawsuits filed in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court and three filed in federal court, including for using excessive force that caused serious injuries, illegal searches, and false imprisonment.

In one case, Raheem Holman alleged that Hagan repeatedly punched him in the face during an unlawful stop and frisk in March 2010 before Capt. Anthony Washington beat him with an expandable baton. Holman, who was later found not guilty of disarming a police officer, resisting arrest and all other related charges, required 11 staples at Methodist Hospital to close a head wound.

The city settled Holman’s case for $95,000 and the five other cases in which Hagan was a defendant for a combined $335,000.

Inquirer staff writers Ellie Rushing and Ryan W. Briggs contributed to this article.