Family Friend Charged With Swindling $130K+ Proceeds From Sale Of Investment Home Sold Out From Under Grieving, Recently-Widowed Senior

In Naples, Florida, the Naples Daily News reports:

• A man who claimed he was a broker is accused of bilking a long-time family friend out of more than $130,000. Brian William Cramer, 33, who used to live in [...] Marco Island, was arrested [...] at his house [...] in Cincinnati by a Cincinnati police officer, said Hamilton County (Ohio) Sheriff's Office spokesman Steve Barnett. Cramer remained in an Ohio jail pending Wednesday extradition to Lee County.

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• The case dates back to September 2005 when Deborah and Joe Workman of Naples decided to sell a Fort Myers Beach investment home. Joe Workman died Sept. 5, 2005 at the age of 72. Deborah Workman, still grieving and taking care of her late husband's estate, didn't know anything about the Sept. 7, 2005, sale of the house until several months later. She learned about it from one of Cramer's friends.

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• In records dated Sept. 7, 2005, Deborah Workman's signature appears on closing paperwork for the house. The money from the sale, $132,841.39, was to be placed in escrow. She told investigators it was not her signature on the documents and she never received the money.

• Deborah Workman said she didn't find out about the sale until March 2006 when she was told by a friend of Cramer's it had sold. She began contacting Cramer about the money, and he said it was in an escrow account. "Deborah Workman gave the issue no more thought for several months as she had complete confidence and trusted Brian Cramer," Lee County Sheriff's Office Detective Mark Zellman wrote in his report.

• She began losing that trust when, "as time went by, it became increasingly difficult to reach him and ... eventually he stopped returning her calls...." Several months later, after numerous attempts to get the money, she contacted an attorney to get things straightened out. "He dropped the ball," she said Wednesday, explaining the two-year gap before trying to report the theft to the Sheriff's Office on April 28, 2008.

• Sheriff's Office records show an offense report was not taken and she was told her only recourse was to file civilly. She continued to try to recover her money, but was eventually told by an attorney to again report it to the Sheriff's Office. She did so and spoke with Zellman on May 22, 2009. Zellman's investigation and the packet of information Workman gave to the detective, shows that the money was put into Cramer's business account listed under BC Properties LLC at a Wachovia bank and he was the sole signatory on it. A Wachovia employee told the detective the account was not an escrow account, but has been Cramer's business account since Nov. 18, 2004.

For more, see Marco Island man arrested in Ohio on grand theft charge.