A Houston\u00a0woman is facing felony charges after investigators say she allegedly deposited more than $460,000 of company funds into her personal bank account over a\u00a0two-year period.<\/p>\n
Heather Surratt was arrested at her home on Monday and booked into the Montgomery County Jail. Surratt is charged with a first-degree felony of theft of property over $300,000.<\/p>\n
Deputies with Precinct 3 Constable Ryan Gable’s office were notified in February by the owner of Styled Real Estate located in south Montgomery County, who suspected Surratt of misappropriating company funds. Detectives with the department’s Criminal Investigation Division began investigating, including a detailed review of the company’s financial records, according to a post on the department’s Facebook page.<\/p>\n
Detectives found that over a two-year period, Surratt allegedly deposited company-issued checks into her personal bank account, totaling more than $460,000. Further investigation indicated the funds were used to purchase luxury clothing, high-end jewelry, expensive dining experiences and international travel.<\/p>\n
In a lawsuit filed by Styled Real Estate against Surratt in April, the company alleged Surratt “wrongfully converted” more than 100 commission checks payable to the company, which were mailed in from various title companies.<\/p>\n
“Rather than ensuring that those funds were delivered to Styled and properly\u00a0accounted for, (Surratt) wrongfully intercepted, endorsed, deposited, negotiated, retained, and appropriated those checks and their proceeds for her own use and benefit.\u00a0The checks at issue were payable to Styled Real Estate,\u00a0LLC or ‘Styled Real Estate,’\u00a0not to (Surratt) individually,”\u00a0the suit claimed.<\/p>\n
On June 6, Judge Kristin Bays of the 284th state District Court issued a judgment against Surratt, ordering her to repay the funds, with interest, and to pay the company’s attorney’s fees.<\/p>\n
In a Facebook post Tuesday, Shelly Scanlin, owner of Styled Real Estate, said she was thankful for the investigation.<\/p>\n
“Constable Gables’ team is top-notch. Special thank you [sic]\u00a0to my detective for calming my nerves and ensuring we have a rock-solid case before the arrest was made. This woman has terrorized my family and my business for quite some time. It ends now. I cannot thank you enough. I encourage all business owners to press charges when theft happens. Help the next person in line and put the criminals where they belong,”\u00a0Scanlin wrote.<\/p>\n
Surratt does not yet have an attorney listed.<\/p>\n
The case remains under investigation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Houston\u00a0woman is facing felony charges after investigators say she allegedly deposited more than $460,000 of company funds…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":197360,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[41346,56,58,57],"class_list":["post-331374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-conroecp","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=331374"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331374\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=331374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=331374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=331374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}