Title agent in jail; husband arraigned.

Orlando title agent Leaza Lopez, the daughter of a wellknown real estate power couple, is now serving a six-year jail sentence for a million-dollar-plus fraud. Her husband, Miguel Lopez, was also arraigned recently on similar theft and conspiracy charges.

Victims of the fraud say they trusted the Lopezes because of her parents’ reputation as a Central Florida real estate couple – Michael and Linda Nabavi. The Nabavis, who were not charged, have declined to comment on her daughter’s charges.

Leaza Lopez was licensed by the state as a title agent, real estate agent and broker, while her husband was licensed as an insurance agent. Together they ran Olde World Title, which had an office in the Marketplace at Dr. Phillips.

Leaza Lopez was charged with theft of about $1.3 million that she was supposed to hold in escrow for clients. The largest victim in her case was First American Title.

Leaza was initially charged in 2016, and pleaded guilty in December to one count of organized fraud; prosecutors dropped several other charges as part of the plea agreement. Miguel Lopez was charged in November with grand theft and conspiracy to commit grand theft and entered a not guilty plea on March 15.

The charges against him list 13 victims claiming $525,000 in losses.

One of the victims, Charles Jebailey told investigators in the case that Miguel Lopez asked him to join him in buying investment properties, and he did so twice, contributing $20,000 and $50,000.

“Her family has been in real estate for a long time, and we trusted her mom. So we assumed she was legitimate,” Orlando businessman Base Maali told the Sentinel in 2016. He said he lost a $50,000 deposit in the alleged fraud.

Efforts to reach the Lopezes and their attorneys have not been successful. According to court records, she told investigators that her troubles began when she missed two months of work following surgery in 2014.

“Lopez stated she intended to repay all the funds she diverted, but could not provide any answer of where she would get the money,” stated an affidavit filed by the investigator for the Statewide Prosecutor’s Office.

The Nabavis have owned real estate and title companies for years in Central Florida, including their current company Platinum Property International.

Another group of buyers told investigators they lost $120,000 that Lopez was supposed to be holding to close on a short sale. Jason and Rachel Costa of Orlando lost money on that deal and also said they used Lopez only because they knew the family – Rachel’s sister once worked for Nabavi at Platinum, the affidavit said.

The investigation went through the state’s Division of Insurance Fraud. Lopez, a licensed title

agent, was arrested in March. She is also facing a civil lawsuit by First American Title Insurance Co., which appointed her to her original position as title agent, according to a state news release. First American had to cover at least $1.17 million of the losses, the state said.

During five months in 2014, consumers filed multiple reports to police and to the state, alleging that Leaza Lopez had stolen their money by failing to forward escrow payments to the appropriate mortgage companies.

According to state records, Miguel Lopez was president of Lopez’s company, Olde World Title, when it was formed in 2011.

Panamax arrivals

Port Canaveral is now getting post-Panamax cargo ships, the largest cargo vessels in its history.

Post-Panamax refers to larger cargo ships that are able to fit through the Panama Canal following its widening in 2016. Port Miami saw its first such ship in 2016.

Two post-Panamax ships have sailed into Port Canaveral so far, the largest of which arrived on March 26 — called the MV Donington, at 125 feet wide, 656 feet long and with capacity to carry 7,400 vehicles.

That’s still not nearly as big as the largest cruise ships that visit the port. Royal Caribbean’s Harmony of the Seas is 1,188 feet long and over 200 feet wide at the widest point.

Attorneys suspended

Two Orlando-area lawyers, Christopher Phillip Hancock and Jacqueline Marie Kinsella, were suspended indefinitely by the Florida Supreme Court under unusual circumstances in two unrelated cases.

Kinsella, 33, of Goldenrod, pleaded no contest in local courts to petty larceny, a misdemeanor, for stealing cash from a department store cash register, where she moonlighted as a non-attorney. She was given 30 days to wrap up legal affairs in a Feb. 15 court order suspending her license.

Hancock’s case was a little more complicated.

He was accused of abandoning his law practice, failing to appear at numerous court hearings, and of raiding his trust account of client funds for his own expenses. His suspension took place immediately after a Feb. 6 court order.

According to the Florida Bar’s petition to suspend Hancock, an investigator went to his office near downtown Orlando in October to deliver a letter from the bar. The investigator found two other attorneys were subleasing his office space, and neither Hancock nor his staff were present.

Several clients “have been unable to communicate with respondent regarding their cases, despite repeated efforts to reach him,” the Bar’s petition said.