In an undercover takedown, Miami-Dade Police arrested and charged a man who they say tried to sell a bedridden elderly woman's house using fake IDs, fake documents and stolen information.
Tom Roy Jenkins, 43, of Oakland Park, was arrested Monday and faces multiple charges, including fraud, grand theft and elderly exploitation, according to an arrest report. He's being held in jail on a $45,000 bond.
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"This individual attempted to practically steal a home from an 86-year-old bedridden female that's in a nursing home," said Miami-Dade Police spokesman Alvaro Zabaleta.
Detectives said Jenkins used a fake Florida driver’s license and drew up fake documents to pose as the elderly woman's son to sell her Miami home.
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Police said he went to a North Miami title company with a forged purchase sale agreement to sell the woman's house for $500,000.
"He provided a fictitious Florida driver's license, so he had all the documentation that he needed in order to show that this was going to be a legitimate purchase of this home," Zabaleta said.
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Police said Jenkins and another woman also presented fake IDs to a notary public.
"Everyone was asking for documentation, everyone was doing the right thing throughout the entire process," Zabaleta said. "There was nothing negligent, but everything that was being provided was all fictitious, but sometime in the process the title company noticed that there was something wrong."
The red flags led the title company to contact the Miami-Dade Police Department's real estate fraud squad to set up an undercover takedown Monday after police said Jenkins tried to pick up a $462,000 check for the house.
The owner of the title company, Marina Title, said in a statement Tuesday that other people were involved in the fraud ring and that "my only hope is that they are brought to justice soon."
"We all have to be more vigilant than ever due to the rampant amount of deed and wire fraud that has infiltrated the South Florida market," Jennie G. Farshchian wrote in a statement in part. "The level of fraud we are seeing now is more sophisticated and organized than before, which requires us as real estate attorneys and title agent to constantly be investing in new methods and technologies in an effort to combat the fraud. The current scheme involves a property that the fraudsters had physical access to, where the buyer had even visited the property and met with the tenant."
Real estate title lawyer Valerie Hassan said it’s easy for criminals to track down a lot of information through public records online and said it’s important to hire an attorney in the real estate business. She also said it's important for homeowners to check up on their property records.
"In my opinion, it’s very important that you keep up to date with checking your property by checking to make sure the records are the way they should be," she said.
Police said they want the community to take a good look at the suspect in case he has other victims. While the title company and officers were able to stop this transaction from going through, sometimes that’s not the case and it becomes a big nightmare for the homeowner to get their property back.
