A 20-year-old Palm Beach County woman will eserve a multi-year prison sentence for a $300,000 real estate scam that touched more than 40 residents in a number of Florida counties many of them in Lee County.
Tabria Josey, along with an accomplice, fraudulently listed underdeveloped plots of land with homebuilding or investment potential in several Florida counties.
The case against her accomplice, Kiana Kiara-Alexis Russell, 22, of Loxahatchee, also involves charges of scheming to defraud, money laundering and aggravated white-collar crime and remains pending. Russell is scheduled for a pre-trial hearing Thursday.
The Attorney General’s Office of Statewide Prosecution filed the case in Lee County due to the fact that many of the victims and listed properties are in Lee County.
Attorney General Ashley Moody said, “This duo laid traps to gain the trust of potential buyers, forcing them to fork over a heavy down payment before cutting off all ties to line their pockets. I’m proud of my Office of Statewide Prosecution for taking down the ringleader of the operation, along with gaining restitution for the victims that suffered through this scheme.”
The duo listed properties on different websites, none Josey or the accomplice owned, for sale and posed as listing agents, sellers and/or representatives from a fictitious title company. Once a potential buyer made contact, Josey and the accomplice then convinced any victim interested in a property to wire money for a down payment and then cut off communications.
While the duo charged the majority of victims from $2,500 to $7,500, some lost between $15,000 to $25,000. More than $300,000 in restitution will be given back to the individual victims.
Josey primarily operated out of Palm Beach County, but fraudulently listed land property in all of the following counties: Flagler, Hillsborough, Indian River, Lee, Orange, Palm Beach and St. Lucie.
Josey pleaded guilty and is convicted of organized fraud in the first degree, organized fraud in the third degree, grand theft; a third-degree felony, aggravated white-collar crime; a first-degree felony, money laundering; a first-degree felony, and two counts of communications fraud in the third degree.
Josey is sentenced to six years in prison, followed by nine years of probation, and was given credit for serving 385 days in jail.
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