Former hotel manager facing theft charge
She’s accused of bilking long-term resident of $60,000.
WEST PALM BEACH — A former manager at a West Palm Beach extended-stay hotel is facing a felony charge of grand theft after the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office said she took more than $60,000 from a woman over 65 years old who was living there.
Detectives said Deydriana Lawrence built a relationship with the woman, who was in a wheelchair after injuring a hip. They say she used the money to pay for credit-card debt, student and car loans and personal items from December 2015 until September 2016, according to sheriff ’s arrest records.
Lawrence told detectives the woman gave her permission to spend the money and that she “didn’t do anything she wasn’t authorized” to do. That included selling the woman’s Ford Fusion for $5,000 and keeping the proceeds “for helping her,” the report said.
Lawrence, 32, of Riviera Beach was arrested May 31 and was released on a surety bond from the county jail that night. Her arraignment is scheduled for July 5. The total she is accused of taking is $60,415, sheriff ’s records show.
Lawrence was an assistant manager at the former Stay Inn on Belvedere Road west of Interstate 95, where the woman lived for about three years, arrest records indicate. The hotel has since been renamed and an employee said Thursday that Lawrence no longer works there.
The woman told detectives she had put Lawrence’s name on her checking account so Lawrence could help with her shopping. She said she never gave Lawrence gifts, payment or permission to use her money in exchange for her help. Detectives interviewed other hotel employees who helped the woman, and they said they never received gifts or payment from her, according to the sheriff ’s report.
In February 2016, the woman also gave Lawrence power of attorney privileges, according to the report. Lawrence told police it was to help the woman enter an assisted-living facility. This grant in power was reversed in September 2016, along with one that would pay Lawrence the balance of the woman’s bank accounts if she died.
Detectives reviewed the woman’s bank statements and found payments to stores and restaurants she had not visited, as well as transfers to loan companies and credit unions where she did not have accounts. Authorities said they also found transfers into Lawrence’s accounts that matched the date proximity and amounts that had been transferred from the woman’s account.
In all, detectives said, they believe Lawrence spent the woman’s money on $15,000 in student-loan payments and about $20,000 in credit-card and car-loan payments, and transferred an additional $25,500 into her own accounts.
Lawrence told investigators that the woman pressed the grand-theft charge because she was angry that Lawrence “would not get her out of the hospital the last time she went,” according to the report.
She said the woman never hired her to be her aide and that she helped her because “she was that kind of person,” the report said.