Former Stratford business owner charged with nine counts of fraud

A once-prominent Stratford business owner and developer is facing a long list of fraud-related charges after his arrest earlier this week.

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On Wednesday, Kevin Larson, former owner of The Hub chain of restaurants in Stratford, Mitchell, Seaforth, Lucan and Bayfield, as well as a number of other local commercial, financial and development businesses, turned himself in to Stratford police. Larson was arrested and charged with nine counts of fraud with a value more than $5,000, nine counts of uttering a forged document and one count of false pretences following a police investigation that began in February 2023.

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Larson was released from custody on an undertaking following his arrest.

Larson, who gained notice for his 2016 purchase and later restoration of Stratford’s iconic “White House,” was previously the owner of Larson Properties Partnership and Cooper Development Inc. and Larson Financial Solutions.

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Larson was previously charged with one count of fraud in April 2023.

In 2022, in a separate matter, Ontario’s highest court upheld a Superior Court of Justice decision that required Larson to pay a local builder more than $530,000 after he was found in breach of contract and in breach of trust. In its written decision, the court’s three-judge panel said Superior Court Justice A. Duncan Grace did not make an error when he found Larson Properties Partnership Corporation and the company’s majority shareholder, Kevin Larson, legally responsible for debt owed to Feltz Design Build following work the contractor completed on a downtown Stratford pub and butchery in October 2019.

Larson is scheduled to appear in court to face his most recent charges on March 4, 2024.

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