MIAMI – A 48-year-old woman was at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center on Wednesday accused of stealing real estate from a victim she met while working as a home health care worker.
According to Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle, Dahamara Cuervo Alonso fraudulently transferred the ownership of an apartment where an 86-year-old woman with cognitive issues lived with her 51-year-old disabled son in Miami’s Little Havana.
“It is a sad comment when owning your home, free and clear, does not provide for your future financial security but instead makes you a target for an alleged thief, Fernandez-Rundle said in a statement.
According to Fernandez Rundle, the victims met Cuervo Alonso when a service agency sent her to their apartment to work as a home healthcare aide because both needed help with their daily needs.
The son reported that after watching a story on YouTube about quit claim deed scams he looked up the property information online and discovered that they had been victims. Cuervo Alonso was the new property owner.
The victims didn’t speak English, and Cuervo Alonso exploited that while routinely asking them to sign documents she said were to help verify the hours she worked, according to prosecutors.
“She was a fraudster and trickster,” Fernandez Rundle said about Cuervo Alonso.
Alonso is facing charges of exploitation of the elderly, grand theft of over $100,000, and an organized scheme to defraud.