BUNNELL, Fla. — The Flagler County Sheriff's Office says it has arrested a Bunnell woman who allegedly used forged property deeds to steal ownership of three vacant lots in Palm Coast that another woman had owned for about 20 years, and then sold one of the lots to an unsuspecting buyer for nearly $30,000. Melissa Jester, 41, of Bunnell, was arrested on Friday, November 6, on a warrant charging grand theft and obtaining property worth $20,000 to $50,000 by swindle, the sheriff's office said in release 2026-243, published Tuesday, November 10. She is charged, not convicted, and is presumed innocent unless proven guilty in court.
Source: Flagler County Sheriff's Office via Flagler County Buzz
According to the release, the sheriff's Problem Area Crime Enforcement (PACE) unit, helped by the FCSO Real Time Crime Center, located Jester driving in Bunnell on Friday, and the Fugitive Apprehension Unit arrested her on the warrant. She was taken to the Sheriff Perry Hall Inmate Detention Facility, where she was being held on a $45,000 bond. The release did not announce a court date, and it made no allegation against the buyer of the lot, whom it described as unsuspecting.
Source: Flagler County Sheriff's Office via Flagler County Buzz
How the alleged scheme worked
The case began on August 27, when the victim reported to the sheriff's office that the deeds to three vacant Palm Coast lots she had owned for about 20 years had been transferred to someone else without her authorisation, the release said. Vacant lots owned by people who do not live on them are a classic target for deed fraud, because a transfer can be filed on paper and an absent owner may not discover it until a tax bill, a visit or a sale attempt exposes the change — in this case, the owner did discover it and reported it.
Source: Flagler County Sheriff's Office via Flagler County Buzz
General Assignment Unit detectives determined that on June 29, 2026, deed transfer paperwork was mailed to the Flagler County Clerk of Courts transferring all three lots to Florida Ohana Homes LLC, a company the sheriff's office said is owned by Jester, and that the victim's signature on the deed had been forged. Mailed-in paperwork is the detail that makes this kind of alleged fraud possible: no one had to walk into the clerk's office and present themselves as the owner.
Source: Flagler County Sheriff's Office via Flagler County Buzz
On September 10, Jester, acting as the company's managing member, sold one of the three lots to the unsuspecting buyer for nearly $30,000, the release said. Detectives seized more than $14,000 from the company's Bank of America account and more than $6,000 from Jester's VyStar account — the remaining balance in each account, according to the sheriff's office. The release did not say what will happen to the sold lot's title, which is usually resolved through the courts and title claims after an arrest of this kind.
Source: Flagler County Sheriff's Office via Flagler County Buzz
Not the first deed-fraud case in Flagler County
Flagler County has seen this pattern before, in a separate and larger case. In March 2026, the sheriff's office announced the arrest of Cheryl Annette Jefferson, 63, of Bartow, after a two-year investigation into the alleged fraudulent sale of multiple properties belonging to other owners in the county. Investigators in that case traced $421,995.30 in deposits tied to property sales in four Florida cases and one in Georgia, and Jefferson was charged with an organised scheme to defraud of more than $50,000 and released on $100,000 bond, WJXT News4JAX reported. Officials have not said the two cases are connected, and they involve different people, different lots and different methods — a forged mailed deed here, alleged identity documents there — but together they show why the county now warns lot owners to watch their own records.
Source: WJXT News4JAX
The Flagler County Clerk of Court offers a free recording activity notification service that alerts subscribers whenever a document is recorded in their name in the county's official records — the kind of alert that can surface a forged deed within days instead of months. Property owners in other U.S. counties, including diaspora families who hold land or lots from overseas, can ask their own county clerk or recorder whether a similar free alert exists; many counties now offer one.
What happens next
Jester's charges — grand theft and obtaining property worth $20,000 to $50,000 by swindle, as alleged in the warrant — now move through the Flagler County courts, where prosecutors will have to prove the forgery and the sale in court. The sheriff's office said the investigation it described is the basis for the arrest; it did not announce further arrests or additional victims in this case. For the woman who reported the transfers on August 27, and for the buyer who paid nearly $30,000 on September 10, the court process is also where ownership of the three lots will be formally untangled.
Source: Flagler County Sheriff's Office via Flagler County Buzz