A Tavares woman is behind bars after she allegedly stole money, forged checks, and opened a fraudulent credit card while staying with a 72-year-old man, his niece, and her daughter last summer.
Shantel B. Barnett, 37, of 729 Lake Dora Drive, was charged Monday with two counts of petit theft (two or more prior convictions), two counts of criminal use of personal information, two counts of uttering fraudulent checks, and single counts of theft from a person 65 years or older and organized scheme to defraud. She’s being held in the Lake County Jail on $27,000 bond.
The thefts reportedly happened last summer. On Sept. 2, 2021, the victim told a Leesburg police officer that on Aug. 31, he went to his bank, BB&T, to conduct business and was told that multiple checks from his account had been cashed between Aug. 10 and Aug. 30. The victim said the teller he has not written any checks in years and that nobody has permission to access or use his checks in any manner, according to the police report.
The teller provided images of the six checks, which ranged in value from $180 to $250. The total value of the checks was $1,295. They were made out to four individuals – three females and a male. The victim recognized the name of two of the people whose names were on the checks. One was his niece, who lives with him, and the other was Barnett, who was an acquaintance of his grandniece and briefly resided with them in August, the report said.
The victim said he spoke with his niece, who denied having anything to do with the checks. The niece said she had recently discovered money missing from her bank account and a fraudulent credit card account was opened online using her personal information. The victim’s niece said she believed Barnett, who has a history of theft and fraud, took the checks while she was living with them, according to the report.
Another officer took over the case and worked with BB&T to determine where the checks had been cashed. None of them were in Leesburg, so law enforcement in other jurisdictions helped with the investigation, the report said
A man who cashed one of the checks in Volusia County told a sheriff’s deputy there that he received the check from Barnett, who is an acquaintance of his former girlfriend. Security video and a still photo from a Space Coast Federal Credit Union branch in Orange City showed a woman cashing one of the checks, made payable to the victim’s niece. The niece and her daughter immediately and positively identified the woman as Barnett, according to the report.
The victim’s niece said Barnett moved into the house last July and moved out about a month later. She said during that time, she received a box of checks in the mail from TD Bank addressed to her. She said her daughter took the box from her and said it was hers without giving an explanation, the report said.
The victim’s grandniece said while Barnett was staying there, she told her she opened a bank account in her mother’s name. She said Barnett asked her for the mailbox key because she was expecting some mail in the victim’s niece’s name and didn’t want her to get it. Barnett received one box of checks but was unaware there’d be a second one, which is how the victim’s niece found them, according to the report.
Asked why she didn’t tell her mother that Barnett opened an account in her mother’s name, the grandniece said she was a pushover and allowed Barnett to do whatever she wanted without resistance. She said she believed Barnett wrote the fraudulent checks because the only way Barnett has any money is by fraudulent activity, the report said.
Video from other bank branches came in over the next several months and further implicated Barnett, who has seven prior arrests for theft and four prior arrests for fraud. Barnett was registered as a felon for fraud in 2018, according to the report.
Barnett is scheduled to appear in Lake County Court on July 5.
