The storefront at Great Falls Shopping Center that once featured upscale and eclectic home furnishings is papered over now, awaiting a new tenant.
Fairfax County Police two weeks ago charged Bernard Rawlings, 41, the former proprietor of an interior design studio called Eccentrics Inc., in the Great Falls Shopping Center, with eight counts of embezzlement, one count of credit card fraud and one count of worthless check, ending a period in which he sometimes accepted cash deposits without delivering any services, according to Fairfax County Police.
“This is a civil issue,” said Rawlings, who telephoned a reporter who had left a business card at his McLean home on Pine Crest Avenue.
“I am a very ethical person,” he said. “Anyone who really, really knows me as a person knows I would not intentionally defraud anyone in any way."
Police say Rawlings “was hired as an interior decorator by several homeowners.
“Rawlings accepted funds from the homeowners but failed to perform any interior improvements or work to their houses,” police said.
They provided no details on the nature of the charges.
“While the investigation is ongoing, the detective is not available for comment,” said Officer William Walker, a public information officer for Fairfax County Police.
Detectives with the Fairfax County Police Department’s Financial Crimes Division investigated after Rawlings was the subject of a number of complaints by citizens.
Joseph Egan of McLean was one of them.
He and his wife, Patty, said they hired Rawlings to decorate two of the rooms in their home on Bellview Road, paying him $25,000 up front, as is the custom for decorators, who must purchase fabric and other materials to fill their customers’ orders.
Patty Egan had “decorated our whole house,” said Joseph Egan. “She is a brilliant decorator.” But when it came to fabric for the curtains, Egan said, she believed Rawlings’ claims that he could secure fine fabrics at a fraction of their market value.
“He came to us with allegations of some outrageous bargains he could get on fabric and furniture. It was almost too good to be true, which it was,” Joseph Egan said.
“We gave him a deposit for $25,000. That was the last we ever saw of it,” he said. Patty Egan ended up doing the drapes herself.
Eventually Egan, an attorney who practices nuclear and environmental litigation, hired Fairfax attorney Kyle Skopic to bring a civil suit against Rawlings.
He sought the refund of $25,800 plus punitive damages, attorney’s fees and court costs.
“I filed what is called a prejudgment attachment. We filed suit and seized his property,” said Skopic. A final judgment order for $17,800 was entered in Fairfax County Circuit Court on Nov. 26, 2002, Skopic said.
BUT RAWLINGS SAID the problems at his Great Falls store stem from having clients whose “eyes are bigger than their purse.
"When it comes time, they don’t have the money, and they back out of their contract,” he said.
Rawlings said the Egans had ordered Henredon furniture, which arrived damaged.
Rawlings returned it to the manufacturer, he said, and got the Egans’ deposit refunded, but they lost faith in him and canceled their order for fabric.
“[Egan] felt that when I gave back the money for the furniture, that I was not stable and was going to go out of business,” said Rawlings.
He said he could not recover the cost from the manufacturer because the fabric had already been cut.
"[Egan] refused to accept it, and I am stuck with it,” Rawlings said.
But the court agreed with the Egans, awarding the judgment, said Skopic.
“WE WENT TO auction Friday, Jan. 10, and sold the contents of the store,” said Skopic, Egan’s attorney. “The day I was doing the attachment, Mr. Rawlings hired a truck and was loading the contents of the store,” she said. “The sheriff was on the scene and stopped him.”
Skopic said her client ultimately recovered $12,500 and later, another $1,400, from the sale of some of the items in Rawlings’ possession.
“I am not going to collect all of it, obviously,” Egan said Monday.
“I have had a lot of people calling to retain me,” Skopic said. But not having fully satisfied the Egans’ claim, she said, she couldn’t add others to their civil case.
Egan said he helped organize a number of consumers who were unhappy with Rawlings.
“A lot of people went to the police,” said Skopic, Egan’s attorney.
General District Court records show several cases pending involving Rawlings.
Elan magazine publisher Michael Gallagher said Rawlings owes the magazine money for advertising and that he wasn’t surprised by Rawlings’ arrest.
“I have his name on a piece of paper that says he will start a payment plan with me. I have his name on a contract” for advertising in the magazine.
But he doesn’t expect to be able to collect, he said.
“For a business of our size, it hurt,” he said, but “that’s part of doing business.”
AFTER RAWLINGS’ ARREST on July 2, police said, he was released on his own recognizance.
He lives in McLean, in a neighborhood of Cape Cod style bungalows, where several large new residences are under construction.
“I have nothing to hide,” Rawlings said on the phone. “They are acting like I am a person no one can find and no one can get in touch with me.”
He said managers at Great Falls Shopping Center, where his store is located, fear the power of local citizens and asked him to leave because of their complaints.
“They are painting me as a con man, a catch-me-if-you-can kind of person. Why would I put my face all over everything if I am a con man?” he said.
Rawlings said he closed his store in Great Falls and moved to Georgetown because publicity from the unproven charges against him hurt his reputation.
“My goal, when I opened that business in Great Falls, was to be the pillar of design and take care of everyone in my own back yard, so I would never have to leave,” he said.
Rawlings is scheduled to be in court on Aug. 27 in Fairfax County General District Court.
According to the Fairfax County Office of the Virginia Public Defender, Rawlings’ defense has been assigned to attorney William Edwards, who was in court and not available for comment at press time on Tuesday.
Rawlings said he is making arrangements to hire his own attorney.