TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - Hunter Flora was arrested and accused of stealing nearly $77,000 from the Lauer Real Estate Group.
Amber Shiflett has been living in a Lauer property for one year.
She says Flora tricked her and her roommates out of money twice.
"It's definitely a learning lesson," said Shiflett. "I will always get my receipts no matter what now, so I will always have proof that I paid my rent on time."
Shiflett adds, Hunter charged her and her roommates twice for rent one month and claimed they didn't pay their last months rent.
And they're not the only ones who claim to be victims.
Another local tenant says he paid 3 months rent by money order to Flora. He was later threatened with eviction because the firm never received his payment.
We reached out to Lieutenant Grady Jordan with the Leon County Sheriff's Office. He says, when tenants pay their rent they should always get a receipt.
Adding, anybody renting should have a contract and know exactly how much their paying and to who.
Flora is being held in the Leon County Jail. We reached out to his attorney for comment and are waiting to hear back.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - A former receptionist has been arrested, accused of stealing nearly $77,000 from the Lauer Real Estate Group.
Hunter Flora, 22, was arrested by the Leon County Sheriff's Office for stealing money from the Lauer Group.
Co-owners of the Lauer Real Estate Group reported to the Leon County Sheriff's Office that one of their employers, Flora, had been stealing from the company.
Lauer Real Estate Group deals with property management for various property owners in Leon County. Lauer Group is responsible for collecting rent due from the tenants of the properties they manage.
When a specific tenant's rent is due, they will come to the Lauer Group office and pay with a check or money order. The check or money order is given to Flora who then logs the payment into the company's computer and issues the tenant a receipt and deposits the payment into the company's escrow account.
Lauer Group pays the property owner their portion of the rent money from the ESCROW account.
The police report states, in October 2017, the Lauer Group accountant told one of the owners that the ESCROW account was only at $4,000. The owners then checked the company's computer which only showed a balance of nearly $100,000.
They checked further and learned several money orders were accepted by Flora and entered into the computer, but were not deposited into their escrow account.
The owners contacted several of their clients and learned Flora had been directing them to turn in their money orders with the "Pay To" line blank, and Flora would fill it in for them.
They also learned several of their clients were directed by Flora to make their payments in cash, which is a violation of company policy. The owners contacted Western Union and MoneyGram and learned that numerous money orders issued by their clients had been cashed by Flora.
Western Union and MoneyGram provided the owners several copies of the cashed money orders and they were able to confirm the money orders were received by Flora as rent payments to Lauer Group.
Deputies met with the owners on Oct. 30, 2017 and they told deputies between $57,000-$95,000 worth of money orders were missing and an unknown amount of money was paid to Flora in cash.
Deputies requested they conduct a full audit of the company's books to better determine the total loss amount.
Flora returned to work from vacation on Nov. 1, 2017 and was confronted by one of the owners about the missing money. Flora admitted to stealing cash and money orders given to the company as rent payments over the course of 2017 and apologized for doing so.
Flora stated to the owners that he stole so much money he was unable to keep track of how much he had taken.
The owners asked asked Flora if he would be surprised to learn he stole more than $100,000 and Flora said, "No." They asked Flora what he planned to do to make things right, and Flora responded he would pay them back by getting a job.
Flora told the owners that he did not have any of the money left because he spent it all.
On Nov. 6, Lauer provided deputies with two spreadsheets showing the financial losses by the company due to Flora's thefts.
The first spread sheet listed 164 money orders that were given to Lauer Group as rent payments, but deposited by Flora. The total loss related to the money orders was around $67,600.
The second spread sheet showed 14 cash transactions where the cash was kept by Flora. The total loss related to the stolen cash was around $4,900.
On Nov. 13 deputies requested a subpoena from the State Attorney's Office for bank records related to Flora's Wells Fargo account. Once deputies received the documents they found 11 additional money orders belonging to Lauer Group that they did not find in their audit.
Each of the 11 money orders showed in the bank documents listed an address where the rent was to be paid by that particular money order. The total amount of the 11 money orders was around $4,400.
Several messages were left on Flora's voicemail on Feb. 27 and 28 by deputies requesting he return their calls. As of March 5, Flora has not made contact with deputies.
Deputies documented a total loss of $76,988.75 for the Lauer Real Estate Group.
Based on the evidence, deputies arrested Flora on March 21 and charged him with grand theft, organized scheme to defraud, deposit with intent to defraud, forgery, uttering forged instrument, and making false entry in books.
He was transported to the Leon County Jail.
