- December 5, 2025
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Trevor Smith was a 27-year-old roofing contractor when he was charged by prosecutors in two counties for defrauding homeowners in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian.
There were three felony cases in all, and each included several charges.
Smith, an independent salesman with the roofing company at the time, faced decades in prison.
But just months after Hillsborough and Manatee county prosecutors filed charges against him, both filed nolle prosequi notices with their respective circuit courts ending each of the cases.
Now, the Pinellas County man is suing Robert J. Perrault, the Florida Department of Financial Services investigator who investigated him, in federal court.
In the lawsuit, Smith charges that “the factual basis for the felony criminal charges all stemmed from egregiously faulty investigations” and that the investigator “fabricated facts in investigative reports, pressured homeowners into believing they were victims of fraud and intentionally misled the prosecuting attorneys into believing Smith committed felony crimes.”
The department is likely to be added to the suit in coming months.
“This really harmed my client, both financially, emotionally and physically, and that's why we wanted to do this,” Joshua B. Alper with the Boca Raton law firm Shapiro, Blasi, Wasserman & Hermann, says in an interview.
“I think this was, far and away, the most egregious set of circumstances of overreaching that I've ever seen practicing law. Ever.”
Perrault, according to court papers, is a veteran investigator with 27 years of experience in law enforcement and a DFS employee of the DFS since 2019.
He has not filed a response to the suit as of April 28 and his lawyers did not respond to a request for comment or a request to make him available for an interview.
A department spokesperson sent an emailed statement saying the department “does not comment on pending litigation.”
As for Smith, Alper also would not make him available for an interview.
“I don't think my client should be speaking publicly about the lawsuit just because we're in litigation,” he says. “And if you have questions about him, you can go through me.”
Asked how much the lawsuit is for, Alper says “the sky is the limits.”
According to the lawsuit filed, court records in both counties and an interview with Alper, here is what is alleged to have happened.
Smith was working as an independent contractor for a roofing company in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian in 2022. He had neither a roofing contractor’s license nor a public adjuster’s license.
His job was to approach homeowners who had suffered damage to their roofs during the storm to sell them on the company’s services.
The ones he wooed would sign an Assignment of Benefits that ostensibly made the claims process easier for the client allowing the contractor to take over for the homeowner.
It’s a controversial process that has been banned in Florida since Jan. 31, 2023, according to DFS, because of issues with manipulation and fraud. But, at the time AOB’s were common.
According to the lawsuit, Smith first came to Perrault’s attention for “acts” that happened between Nov. 22 and Nov. 25, 2022.
He was in Tampa going door-to-door on the 22nd when he approached a homeowner on Ryman Place.
Perrault wrote in an affidavit that after inspecting the homeowner’s roof, Smith said he’d found significant damage that required a full replacement. He told the homeowner that the insurance company would pay for the replacement and presented an AOB.
The affidavit, which is quoted in the lawsuit, says Smith “exaggerated existing imperfections” and that he told the homeowner that it couldn’t be patched or fixed.
A claim was filed citing the date of loss as Nov. 10.
Perrault alleged that during the process Smith identified himself as a contractor and fabricated the date of loss and the damage.
In the course of the investigation, Perrault looked at two other similar interactions Smith had with homeowners, one on Jan. 2, 2023, in Tampa and one between May 5 and 9, 2023, in Palmetto.
The findings, the lawsuit says of the first case, resulted in the Hillsborough County State’s Attorney’s Office prosecuting Smith for insurance fraud, acting as a public adjuster without a license and engaging in unlawful acts as a contractor during a state of emergency.
Prosecutors charged him in two cases totaling six felonies in Hillsborough May 28, 2024.
He was charged in Manatee May 3, 2024. That case included five felonies, among them forgery and fraudulently using a personal identification information of someone older than 60.
Within months of Smith being charged with the 11 felonies, the cases were dropped.
Manatee prosecutors dismissed its felony case against Smith Oct. 29, 2024. Hillsborough dropped its two cases Jan. 30, 2025.
A Jan. 22 one page no-file memo written by — and provided to the Business Observer —Hillsborough prosecutors says the office was unable to prove the charges against Smith.
In one instance, prosecutors write that, "According to the deposition of the victim, the defendant did not go upon the roof to inspect it. The defendant did not speak with the victim to discuss any of the findings from the inspection or did anything beyond asking him if he wanted a free inspection of the roof."
Prosecutors in Manatee did not respond to a request for comment and the notices to the court that the cases were being dismissed did not give a reason why.
“The prosecutors, I surmise,” says Alper, Smith’s attorney, “came to the realization that this wasn't going to end well for them, they weren't going to have the proof that they needed, because the affidavit upon which the entire case was based on was cooked.”
He says the facts — as his client sees them — came out during the prosecution cases when Smith’s criminal attorney, Simon L. Wiseman, deposed Perrault and the homeowners. Alper says what came out of the depositions was that the affidavits that led to each of the prosecutions “were totally false.”
“The homeowners refuted everything in the affidavits to the point where you had to wonder, ‘What were these affidavits based upon?’” he says.
Wiseman, in a motion to dismiss the Manatee case filed Oct. 14, 2024, quotes from the deposition with the owner of the home on Riviera Dunes in Palmetto. The attorney asks the owner if Smith forged his signature, electronically signed documents without permission or assumed his identity to file a homeowner’s claim.
The homeowner answered no, not that he was aware of, to each question.
Perrault, in his affidavit, writes in his conclusion, though, that based on his investigation Smith “did utter a forged instrument, while posing as the homeowner without permission, and subsequently intercepted this fraudulent insurance claim for a roof replacement with a fabricated date of loss and damage.”
Today, Smith is living in Palm Harbor and struggling, Alper says. He can’t find work both because of the criminal charges and publicity associated with it. His mugshot is still online.
Finances are difficult, too, because of having to pay for a criminal defense attorney to represent him in the two cases.
Alper did not give a dollar amount for what Smith is asking for in the suit, saying that “the sky is the limit.”
As for any immunity Perrault may have as a law enforcement official, Alper says that was lost because of the malicious prosecution he is alleging.
The Washington-based National Conference of State Legislatures and the NAACP both say an officer is protected until they violate a suspect’s constitutional rights. In this case, Alper argues in the suit that Perrault violated Smith's Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable searches and seizures.
There is one more question that Alper believes needs to — and eventually will be — answered: How did Smith come to DFS’ attention in the first place, especially considering the homeowners supposedly disagree with the investigation’s findings?
He doesn’t personally believe that the department “just goes about looking for people to investigate and arrest.”
“Ultimately, what I think will unfold is that there were referrals to the Department of Financial Services made by the insurance carriers that were involved with these homeowner claims,” he says, adding that, “Usually, it comes from the insurance company that has had their eye out on somebody or a company for a bit.”
Which raises another question. Why did the insurance companies have their eye out on Smith?
