Property Mgmt Ripoff - Det Joe Ioppolo NPR PD

A 63-year-old who runs a property management company in New Port Richey is accused of ripping off absentee property owners by depleting escrow accounts. We speak with New Port Richey police detective Joe Ioppolo. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Gordon Bird here beyond the News, the owner of a
Newport Richie property management business is facing charges of fraud
and theft. We're going to get some more information about
that case right now, because potentially there are a lot
of victims. Detective Joe i Apolo is with the Newport
Richie Police Department and joins us now on beyond the News.
Detective i Apolo, welcome. All right, Now, let's talk a

(00:24):
little bit about this case. This involves a property management business.
I assume is this a situation where someone is managing
property for property owners and maybe involved in leasing and
things like that. Exactly, Yeah, all right, so this is
the defendant. The person arrested is sixty three year old

(00:47):
Michael Bundy, and tell us what he is accused of
doing in his business. That is basically defrauding these clients
according to your affidavit.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
Yeah, so anything about July and August of this year,
clients started coming forward realizing they weren't get there, weren't
getting their dispersement checks, and were given letters saying the
company was going out of business due to whatever reasons
of him being sick or but he just wasn't able
to manage the properties anymore. So the dispersement checks stopped

(01:20):
going out in July looks like July, August, September to
a lot of the property owners.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
So you were able then to discover that that's not
quite what was going on. So how were you able
to find that out? As far as this company Sonista
Realty or Sonista Realty, as far as there as far
as there's something going on of a criminal nature.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
So there's there's over two hundred and thirty different clients
that Uness does property management for several clients, have you know,
a couple of properties, somehow as many as fifty or
sixty properties. So as soon as the words started getting
out that these people weren't getting the the properties back
or the money back for the properties managed by Seness,

(02:03):
that they started contact and the office manager and ultimately
came in and filed police reports. So I reached out
to all two hundred thirty clients, and there's trickling in
seems to be the same story with every client that's
contacting me back so forth. I think I got about
fifty or sixty clients with various properties that have not

(02:24):
gotten the spersman checks. Are not managed by Sonias anymore
and are not have not gotten their escro fund funds
back for first last security deposit, and that's that's a
big issue.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
So there was an escrow account where this money was
supposed to go, and you were able then to determine
in the course of your investigation that the accounts were
not something was happening to that money that was not
supposed to be happening.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
Yeah, So there's a fiduciary bond for these type of
management situations where you take escrow money in for security deposits,
it's really not supposed to be touched unless the property
owner disperses that back out to the people that are
no longer read in the properties. Once I knew that
this was probably criminal nature, we subpoened bank accounts and

(03:11):
realized that there was no money in operating accounts or
escort accounts.

Speaker 1 (03:15):
So what if you found so far as far as losses,
how much money do you think is affected here? And
could that number rise?

Speaker 2 (03:24):
Right now? I think it's about three hundred and sixty
thousand just from the people that came forward. Most of
the victims or the property owners don't live in the
state of Florida. I've had people from California, from Canada,
from Germany contact me back after I email them, So
I expect the number to go up. I expect that

(03:46):
it's probably going to be the case for most of
the clients. I expect that number to go to go
up a lot.

Speaker 1 (03:51):
Are these properties primarily commercial or residential or a mix
of the two.

Speaker 2 (03:56):
I think it's mostly residential, so we're.

Speaker 1 (03:59):
Basically talking about homes, apartments, things like that.

Speaker 2 (04:02):
Exactly.

Speaker 1 (04:04):
So, since you have owners that are around the country
and may not be aware of this investigation, if they
believe that they're not getting the money to which they're
entitled and they think there may be a crime, how
should they get in touch with you?

Speaker 2 (04:21):
They can definitely call a new purchase police department. Like
I said, I reached out to all of them. I
got a client list from the office manager ex office
manager from Cinista. I sent this out that I've been
working this case since probably early October, where I started
sending emails out to different property owners and I get
daily I get a couple that come through and say yes,

(04:43):
I'm in the same situation. I haven't got any dispersement checks,
no scrow bounds back and communications that say hey from
mister Bunny that hey, you're going to get the money back.
I'm working on getting your money back, but it just
seems to be a string along effect.

Speaker 1 (05:00):
And something that you'll continue to be working and presumably
this will go through the court system and be resolved
one way or another. Detective Joe I Apolo with the
new Port Richie Police Department, thank you very much for
talking with us about this case involving the Sinista Realty
and sixty three year old Michael Bundy. Thank you for
talking with us on beyond the news.

Speaker 2 (05:21):
Appreciate it. Thank you