{"id":64127,"date":"2026-03-25T23:52:19","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T03:52:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=64127"},"modified":"2026-03-25T23:52:24","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T03:52:24","slug":"on-march-24-2026-cheryl-annette-jefferson-63-of-bartow-was-arrested-following-a-two-year-investigation-into-a-multi-state-property-fraud-scheme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2026\/03\/25\/on-march-24-2026-cheryl-annette-jefferson-63-of-bartow-was-arrested-following-a-two-year-investigation-into-a-multi-state-property-fraud-scheme\/","title":{"rendered":"On March 24, 2026, Cheryl Annette Jefferson, 63, of Bartow, was arrested following a two-year investigation into a multi-state property fraud scheme."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On March 24, 2026, Cheryl Annette Jefferson<\/strong>, 63, of Bartow, was arrested following a two-year investigation into a multi-state property fraud scheme.<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n

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According to the Flagler County Sheriff\u2019s Office, Jefferson is accused of selling land she did not own by using fraudulent documents.<\/sup> The investigation began in early 2024 when a property owner discovered her land had been sold without her knowledge after she tried to pay her property taxes.<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Key Details of the Case<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
    \n
  • The Charges:<\/strong> Jefferson is charged with an organized scheme to defraud over $50,000<\/strong>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • The Scope:<\/strong> Detectives linked her to $421,995<\/strong> in illegal deposits. The fraud spanned multiple locations, including Flagler and Lee Counties in Florida, Greene County, Georgia, and Pueblo County, Colorado.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • The Method:<\/strong> Investigators found that Jefferson allegedly used fake driver\u2019s licenses that featured her photograph but the names of the actual property owners to facilitate the sales. In one instance, a victim discovered a house had been built on their vacant lot without their consent.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • The Defense:<\/strong> Jefferson claimed she was acting at the direction of someone she believed was country singer Brian Kelley<\/strong> (of Florida Georgia Line) to help fund a recording studio. However, a search of her phone revealed messages with someone posing as another singer, Chase Rice<\/strong>, regarding the transfer of funds into cryptocurrency.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • International Links:<\/strong> Authorities state the money was eventually funneled through cryptocurrency accounts belonging to individuals in Nigeria.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

    Jefferson was arrested on a fugitive warrant in Walton County and was later released after posting a $100,000 bond<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    On March 24, 2026, Cheryl Annette Jefferson, 63, of Bartow, was arrested following a two-year investigation into a multi-state property fraud scheme. According to the Flagler County Sheriff\u2019s Office, Jefferson… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":64128,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"14","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNlwvMDNcL1NjcmVlbnNob3QtMjAyNi0wMy0yNVQyMzQ5MzcuNTgwLndlYnA_Zml0PTM3MSUyQzM2MSZzc2w9MSIsInR4dCI6Ik9uIE1hcmNoIDI0LCAyMDI2LCBDaGVyeWwgQW5uZXR0ZSBKZWZmZXJzb24sIDYzLCBvZiBCYXJ0b3csIHdhcyBhcnJlc3RlZCBmb2xsb3dpbmcgYSB0d28teWVhciBpbnZlc3RpZ2F0aW9uIGludG8gYSBtdWx0aS1zdGF0ZSBwcm9wZXJ0eSBmcmF1ZCBzY2hlbWUuIiwidGVtcGxhdGUiOiJoaWdod2F5IiwiZm9udCI6IiIsImJsb2dfaWQiOjE2MzA0MDY2MX0.J0pYVfbuogShiCEg6V60O5SY9gy5Uq7fiEH4EFdKzD4MQ"},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[14],"tags":[13094,14196,14195,14197,14194,14198],"class_list":["post-64127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-13094","tag-14196","tag-cheryl-annette-jefferson","tag-of-bartow","tag-on-march-24","tag-was-arrested-following-a-two-year-investigation-into-a-multi-state-property-fraud-scheme"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64127"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64129,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64127\/revisions\/64129"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}