TEMPLE, Texas — A former owner for the embattled Central Texas pool company, Moonlight Pool & Spa, said he was asked to step out of a consulting role with the company back in March of 2023 because he believed employees did not want him to know where income from the company was going.
"We had a considerable amount of capital invested in the company, and we were never meant to be in the middle of operations," said Morgan Mulch.
Morgan Mulch said during his time with the company, management was advised not to give themselves salary raises, though they did anyway.
As for customers that received completed pools by the company, Morgan Mulch said Moonlight workers were advised to handle warranty work. Mulch said he and his wife held personal guarantees on all equipment that the company used for maintenance.
"That's now all under water," Morgan Mulch said. "Somebody's got to make payments and now we have to step up and make full payments on it and we're working with Capital Asset, who is the leasing company for the equipment."
Morgan Mulch said their plan is to liquidate all of the equipment.
When Mulch negotiated out the separation with Moonlight Pool & Spa back in 2023, he said they gave a "considerable amount" of money to the vendors to ensure that the company would continue operating.
"This has been tough on my family financially and we've taken a significant hit," Morgan Mulch said. "There's also the trust factor when you partner with somebody, you adhere to your word and that's what we do."
Morgan Mulch's wife, Ashley, said the couple has heard conflicting stories on whether or not the company, or management has filed for bankruptcy. Though Ashley says their decision to "get out" came from a differing opinions in how the company needed to be ran.
"Our partners had given themselves raises and taken out other money (from the amount that was loaned to them) that we weren't aware of at the time," Morgan Mulch said. "It seemed pretty clear that we were never going to get paid back, but I never thought it would get here."
After Morgan Mulch was kicked out of the company, the couple engaged with an attorney to negotiate their split with the business and weighed filing a lawsuit to recoup some of the money that they had already put in, but decided against it.
"What was indicated to us from Mike Rem was that they were having financial issues and basically stopped communicating with us," Morgan Mulch said. "They wanted us to pay a significant amount of money to them in order to get out."
Morgan Mulch added that negotiations had ground to a stand still and she and her husband would only get out if management agreed to let them pay vendors directly, adding that she did not trust Moonlight and their business partners with any money directly, so checks were made to the vendors before the Mulch's' secured their exit from the company.
"We had no idea that clients were being treated that way for that amount of time and I cannot believe that they would just stop operations and not complete projects," Morgan Mulch said. "I believe they were spending money they shouldn't have been spending, it was devastating to hear."
Though Mulch said they do have a claim for legal action they believe filing a lawsuit against Rem and his partner Kevin Lock would be a zero-sum gain.
"I think they need to be held accountable and whatever we can do to help the people that were victimized by this then we're happy to do it," Morgan Mulch said.
Ashley Mulch added that she and her husband have been compiling documentation that would be "very beneficial" to law enforcement and for victims if a case were to be brought against the owners.
To this point, Morgan Mulch said in conversations with their attorney there has been no news of a bankruptcy filing by either Rem or Lock. But to see the company go belly-up, came as no surprise.
"They stopped going to jobs (referring to Lock and Rem) and it seemed like they weren't as active and present as they were before with pools, which I think probably hurt them in terms of quality control," Morgan Mulch said.
Ashley Mulch added that while the company was still functioning and work was going unfinished for a growing number of clients, she recalled Rem going on "vacations a lot."
When asked if construction jobs and routine maintenance were outsourced to "inexperienced employees" they said "it sounded accurate."
"I did see some tendencies, and I did see some changes, but we couldn't believe that it had gone that far," Morgan Mulch said.
To this point, a growing number of customers, many members of the "Victims of Moonlight" Facebook group have filed complaints and criminal charges against the company and owners.
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