Low water pressure in parts of her house is one of the many problems Shannon Sims and her mother, Diane Tillman, say they found with their post-Katrina contractor work.

“Nothing's completed, and what is completed is not right,” Tillman said.

That includes a bathtub which slowly drains water.  Sims filled it up to demonstrate, and said the water would stay in the tub until Wednesday, four days after Eyewitness News interviewed her.

“I have three bathrooms in this house.  Only one is operable,” Sims said.

She also has two leaks in the ceiling, a floor she says is poorly done, with a section that is stained with a subcontractor’s initials, and a kitchen floor that hasn't been completed and is starting to crack.  It's what Sims and her mother call shoddy work from a contractor who made lofty promises.

“He had different levels of work: a Cadillac, a Toyota, a Mercedes.  I picked the Cadillac and got a Hyundai,” Tillman explained.

The contractor is J.J. McCleskey.  You may remember him as a New Orleans Saints cornerback in the mid 1990s.  He wore number 44 and named his company 44 Builders.

“I tell you what.  Either I'm a crook or I'm not a crook.  That's the bottom line,” McCleskey told WWL.

He admits to providing slow and unprofessional work in the Sims/Tillman home, but says Sims and her mother didn't point out the extra work he did, like installing a custom shower and doing additional painting.  Those are examples Shannon Sims disputes.

“What about those things?  So if I'm going to work with you on those things, don't you think I wouldn't work with you, so I wouldn't be on TV and ruin my company and my reputation?” McCleskey said.

“You do the math.  This interview is costing me more than money.  My heart, the integrity that I have in this city.”

“He has an answer and excuse,” said frustrated customer Dolores Aaron, “and he talks about his integrity.  He doesn't want his integrity questioned.”

After months of trusting McCleskey, Aaron says she started to question that integrity.

“It hurts and I trusted him.  I trusted him.  I really trusted him,” she said, crying.  Aaron says she didn't get what she paid for, she estimates about $20,000 worth of items.

“It's been a nightmare, a real nightmare.”

Aaron says her kitchen countertops and cabinets are not what she picked out and the countertop should have been thicker, with a different finish.

She says McCleskey also left her with a shoddy front door and without cabinets in two rooms.  She had someone else install them recently while lamenting poorly-laid hardwood floors and the wrong color carpet.

She says McCleskey still owes a friend $1200 for gutters.  McCleskey asked the friend to pay and promised to pay him back, but hasn't.  Three weeks ago, the man filed suit in small claims court.

“This is not a person you would ever think would be deceitful, and he was deceitful,” Aaron said.

For this story, Eyewitness News talked to more than six other people who had similar stories, with work not fully completed, materials promised and paid for, but something different installed.

“If J.J. McCleskey hasn't done something right and he hasn't made restitution for it, it's because that person is not coming up to me asking for it, or they owe me money,” McCleskey said.

He says Shannon Sims and her mother owe him thousands of dollars. 

“That's an outright lie,” Tillman said.  “I've given him more money than the work he has performed.”

Sims and Tillman’s records show the contract with 44 Builders is worth about $144,000 and all but about $20,000 has been paid.

McCleskey hasn't done any work in the house in about a year, and legally couldn't return right now, even if he wanted to.  According to the state contracting board, McCleskey is not licensed to do work in the state and still owes $500 for a fine.  The board fined McCleskey for not maintaining a current certificate of insurance for worker's compensation and general liability as required by the law.   At that time, they made the fine, ordered him to stop all work and took away his license.

“These people are getting beautiful houses and complaining,” McCleskey said.

He adds that in many cases his clients are being picky.   In others, he admits the work has dragged on longer than it should have.  Dolores Aaron and Shannon Sims say McCleskey's shoddy and incomplete work has cost them thousands more, which has come out of their own pocket.

“It's going to probably cost us another $70,000 to $80,000 to get this house the way the Cadillac is supposed to work,” Sims said.

It’s money Sims says she will never get back from the former New Orleans Saint.

McCleskey says the reason he hasn't repaid the $1200 for the gutter, is that he's still owed $5000 for work done on the home.  But the owner of that house, Dolores Aaron says she's paid McCleskey in full.  McCleskey also says because of the additional work in both homes, that wasn't requested by either client, he didn't make money on either project.