Santa Rosa Clerk of Court & Comptroller Jason English is a busy man, overseeing nearly 1,000 statutory and mandatory tasks with which his office is tasked; however, he made time today to address the Navarre Area Board of Realtors about recent scams and ongoing property fraud attempts.
Clerk English said he was recently at a Board of County Commission meeting when his phone rang just before the meeting began. A fraudster was trying to extort him for allegedly missing jury duty. The audience laughed when English pointed out the irony of a scammer unintentionally calling the elected official responsible for issuing jury summons while pretending to be a Santa Rosa County Deputy, trying to get the Clerk to pay money to resolve the matter. The fraudster hung up when English told him who he had reached.
“You will not get a phone call if you miss jury duty,” English stressed, pointing out that neither his office nor the Sheriff’s Office makes calls for missing a jury summons.
Additionally, Clerk English went on to inform the crowd that his office’s website now has a webpage dedicated to providing notifications if/when a document is recorded into the Official Records of Santa Rosa County with an Identity that is being monitored.
To have your identify monitored for free, simply sign up via the link below, and an email will automatically be sent to the provided email address.
Clerk English told the group about the case of Lisa Jeanine Findley, a 54-year-old woman from Kimberling City, Missouri, who was sentenced to 57 months in federal prison for a fraudulent scheme to steal Graceland, the historic home of Elvis Presley after she created a fake company and fabricated documents, claiming that Lisa Marie Presley had borrowed $3.8 million in 2018, using Graceland as collateral. Findley had forged the signatures of Lisa Marie Presley and a notary to initiate a fake foreclosure sale of the Memphis estate, demanding millions from the Presley family to stop it. The fraudulent sale was halted before it could be completed by a lawsuit filed by Elvis’ surviving family members.
English pointed out that the new notification service applies only to documents recorded after signup, and the free service does not constitute a liability on the part of Clerk’s office. Furthermore, email addresses and names used for the Record Notification Service are not subject to public disclosure per Florida public records law.
In closing, Clerk English suggested persons who own property should enter every variation of their name into the notification alerts. For example, John Lee Smooter should create notifications for John L. Smooter, John Lee Smooter and John Smoother.
Click here to set up your notifications now: Clerk’s Property Fraud Notifications
