Last Oct. 25, Janet Sterry died at a hospital in Palm Coast. She was 76. Last week, her 56-year-old son, Thomas Frazzetto of White Star Drive in Palm Coast, was arrested on a felony charge of grand theft and a felony charge of fraud.
He’d faked his late mother’s signature on a series of checks in November and made a half dozen electronic transfers out of her bank account in October and November, allegedly stealing some $9,000 before family members got an alert from the bank: someone was attempting to cash a $51,200 check.
A Flagler County Sheriff’s investigation revealed that Frazzetto had written the checks to himself in increments of around $300 bearing his mother’s signature, and money transfers through Zelle, the app, in increments of $300 to $2,000. Frazzetto, who pleaded to selling cocaine in 2019 (adjudication was withheld, sparing him the designation of a felon), has had several drug arrests since 2018. He’d been living with his mother.
When detectives spoke with him in December, he said his mother would leave him a few signed checks to use if he was running errands and needed to pick up medicine or other things for her. He acknowledged that his aunt and his stepbrother were his mother’s estate executors, but said the only check he’d signed on his mother’s behalf was an $80 payment to the cleaning person.
The cleaning woman told detectives she never received the check. In fact, the check was deposited in Frazzetto’s account. Detectives obtained numerous additional records by subpoena, discovering that the day before Serry’s death, when she was incapacitated in the hospital, there’d been a $2,000 Zelle transfer from her account to Frazzetto’s.
The State Attorney’s office filed the two felony charges on June 9. Frazzetto was arrested on June 19 as a fugitive at the White Star address. He was booked at the Flagler County jail on $10,000 bond. He remains at the jail. His arraignment is scheduled for July 22. If he is convicted, he is no longer eligible to have his adjudication withheld.
JimboXYZ says
Would be interesting to know if there was any Trust or Will since the mother was 6 months out & towards being deceased. Incapacitated in the hospital ? Who was named the executor or power of attorney in all of this for estate affairs while the mother was alive, in the hospital in a hospice of sorts ? Power of Attorney to handle the estate as a care giver of sorts ?. Sometimes the individual that would be the heir to that estate, whether he be the sole heir or one of several beneficiaries ? In this case this is the colorful character of a son, may not be exactly the most ideal individual for any role of handling the estate affairs. There are certain thresholds for an estate to even be taxable, that make this nothing more than a family handling their own internal matters for an estate distribution ? That’s if the entire lot of them were sophisticated enough to have a Trust, Will or anything else in place ? The State of FL has it’s rules for probate & trusts for how that’s handled. Kind of hard to press charges when the mother is deceased ? That might have to come from the rest of the beneficiaries, if there are even any ? The pecking order is creditors, so what debt did Mom owe ? If there are no creditors, is this anything more than just a son handling his windfall of an inheritance ?
Atwp says
This is very common. He will probably get a hit on the wrist and go free.