A Maryland man is facing felony charges after investigators linked him to the theft of nearly $39,000 from a Central Florida couple who were tricked into wiring him the down payment for their new home.
Cecil Porter Bartu was arrested in August and charged with obtaining property by fraud, grand theft, and fraudulent use of personal identification information, according to an arrest affidavit filed in Polk County Circuit Court.
Matthew Brock and his wife, Stefanie, were preparing to close on a new home when they began receiving emails from what appeared to be their home title company.
The emails came from a spoofed address nearly identical to the firm’s real email address. The only difference was the domain extension: “.co” instead of “.com.”
“I don’t think you’re really looking for one consonant to be left out of an email,” Matthew Brock told News 6 in 2025.
In January 2025, the couple received wiring instructions from the spoofed email address directing them to send $38,805.17 to a fraudulent bank account, according to the affidavit.
They wired the money that same day, unaware the instructions were fake.
The couple later learned the title company never received the funds.
Investigators with the Lake Wales Police Department traced the electronic payment to Bartu’s account at a North Carolina bank which had been opened nearly two months earlier, according to the affidavit. No other money entered the account until the couple’s wire arrived, court records show.
The same day the $38,805.17 landed in the account, Bartu walked into a bank branch and withdrew $33,100, according to investigators.
Security footage captured the transaction, and a still photograph was sent to the Raleigh Police Department, where an officer positively identified Bartu from prior experience.
Bartu then drove to a second branch where he was denied access to the remaining funds, which the bank had placed on hold, court records show.
An additional $485.50 was withdrawn from two ATMs in Charlotte later that day, investigators said.
After the theft was reported, the bank closed Bartu’s account and returned the remaining funds to the Brocks, court records indicate.
Bartu, 41, has pleaded not guilty to the charges, which include two second-degree felonies — obtaining property by fraud between $20,000 and $50,000, and grand theft between $20,000 and $100,000 — as well as a third-degree felony for fraudulent use of personal identification information.
Last month, a judge granted Bartu’s request to be allowed to return to his home in Maryland while awaiting trial.
