A Florida property manager is accused of diverting $102,827 in tenant payments while altering apartment records to conceal money that investigators say never reached the company that owned the units.
Jessyka May Hernandez Ortega, 45, worked as a property manager at the Lucaya community in Delray Beach. According to a Delray Beach Police probable-cause affidavit filed in Palm Beach County court, her duties included collecting rent and move-in payments, providing receipts, depositing the money and entering tenant information into the Yardi property-management system.
The investigation ultimately identified 764 money orders totaling $284,020 that the detective said had been deposited to Hernandez Ortega’s account between December 2022 and May 2025. Of that amount, investigators accounted for $102,827 in tenant money-order payments through receipts and deposits located in her personal accounts. The affidavit says the charged amount does not include every money order investigators found, alleged Home Depot charges or other miscellaneous transactions involving tenants.
Hernandez Ortega was arrested Sept. 24. Court records list two first-degree felony allegations: grand theft involving $100,000 or more and organized fraud involving an aggregate value of $50,000 or more. At her first appearance the following day, a judge set bond at $250,000 on each count, for a combined $500,000.
An Audit Triggered Questions About Tenant Payments
The association began auditing leases in May 2025 to compare the paper records with information entered in Yardi, according to the affidavit. Investigators said Hernandez Ortega resigned after the review began and eventually stopped reporting to work despite efforts to accommodate modified hours she requested.
A regional manager who took over her duties began sending delinquency letters to tenants whose Yardi accounts showed unpaid balances. Residents then started coming to the office with receipts and money-order records showing they had already submitted payments.
Karadi told police that Hernandez Ortega had completed receipts when she accepted payments, but alleged that the receipt books disappeared when she left. That forced the company to rely heavily on documentation retained by residents and records obtained from money-order companies and banks.
Detectives eventually obtained sworn statements from 22 residents. The affidavit says Delray Beach officers provided Creole and Spanish translation during some of those interviews. Some residents said they personally filled out their money orders, while others said they had handed them over blank and allowed Hernandez Ortega to help complete them.
The detective wrote that payments left in the office deposit box or with another employee still passed through Hernandez Ortega because she was responsible for entering payments in Yardi and depositing them into the company account.
Investigators Say Payments Were Shifted Between Tenant Ledgers
The affidavit describes what investigators characterized as a system of moving payments between apartment ledgers to conceal missing money.
Karadi told police that Hernandez Ortega sometimes allocated a payment associated with one unit to a different tenant’s account. Investigators said searches using money-order numbers revealed payments credited to accounts belonging to people who had not actually made them.
The affidavit also alleges that money-order information was sometimes made harder to locate by changing one or two digits or entering only the final four numbers in Yardi.
Karadi also raised questions about the property’s eviction pattern. He said the property appeared to have a high delinquency rate but unusually few completed evictions. According to the affidavit, Hernandez Ortega had reported multiple residents as being in various stages of eviction even though no tenants had been sent through the eviction process during the previous six months.
In one example, investigators alleged that occupants were moved from one unit to another in the system so the original unit’s delinquent balance could be written off. The affidavit says payments associated with that account were also credited to other tenants.
Police described a similar pattern involving units owned by another person in the Lucaya community. The affidavit alleges Hernandez Ortega collected move-in money from tenants of those units, kept the money and later used rent collected from Prashkovsky tenants to cover amounts owed to the other owner. Investigators said additional payments then moved in the opposite direction, mixing money belonging to tenants of units owned by separate entities.
Bank Records Showed Hundreds of Money Order Deposits
Investigators subpoenaed records from Wells Fargo, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Zelle and other financial sources as they attempted to trace the tenant payments.
The affidavit says JPMorgan Chase reported that it found no accounts for Hernandez Ortega during the requested period. Wells Fargo, however, produced records for multiple accounts in her name, while Bank of America produced records for a business account belonging to Jessyka Hernandez LLC.
Investigators said those records contained hundreds of money-order deposits. Many were signed by Hernandez Ortega and contained information connected to her, while some contained names or unit information indicating where the money was originally intended to go.
In the detective’s final accounting, 764 money orders totaling $284,020 had been deposited to Hernandez Ortega’s account from December 2022 through May 2025. The detective said $102,827 in tenant money-order payments could be accounted for through receipts supplied by tenants and/or deposits located in Hernandez Ortega’s personal accounts.
The affidavit emphasizes that $102,827 was the amount used for the criminal allegations, not a claim that every dollar of the $284,020 in money-order deposits had been established as stolen tenant money. Investigators also wrote that the charged amount did not include all of the money orders they found or several other categories of alleged transactions.
The Affidavit Also Describes Insurance, Notary and Home Depot Allegations
The investigation extended beyond ordinary rent and move-in payments.
One resident told police that Hernandez Ortega helped him with renter’s insurance and vehicle insurance. The affidavit says he paid $900 in cash for vehicle insurance and gave her his vehicle title, but later discovered the vehicle had not been insured. Investigators said the cash payment could not be traced.
Another tenant told detectives she had paid Hernandez Ortega for renter’s insurance but discovered after a fire caused a total loss in her unit that the insurance had never been obtained. The detective wrote that investigators were unable to locate that particular payment.
The Lucaya community also held an annual event that was free to residents but required notarized paperwork for certain activities. According to the affidavit, the association discovered Hernandez Ortega had allegedly been charging residents $20 to notarize those forms even though the service was supposed to be provided without charge.
Investigators also examined purchases made with a Prashkovsky Home Depot credit card. The affidavit says orders were placed under a different name but were connected to Hernandez Ortega through her email and delivery information. Karadi told police the items, which included cleaning supplies, were not authorized and were not purchased for the benefit of the community.
Court Records List Two First-Degree Felony Allegations
The arrest warrant lists grand theft involving property valued at $100,000 or more under Florida’s theft statute and organized fraud involving an aggregate value of $50,000 or more under the state’s Communications Fraud Act.
Under current Florida law, theft involving $100,000 or more is grand theft in the first degree. Organized fraud involving an aggregate value of $50,000 or more is also a first-degree felony.
Hernandez Ortega’s arrest warrant was signed Sept. 8, and Palm Beach County court records show she was arrested Sept. 24. The case, 50-2026-CF-006863-AXXX-MB, remained open when the docket was reviewed Sept. 29.
At her Sept. 25 first appearance, the court set a $250,000 bond on each count. The judge also ordered no contact with the alleged victim, witnesses or any current or former tenants in the Lucaya community.
The court imposed a bond-source requirement and ordered Hernandez Ortega to surrender her passport to the clerk’s office before release. The clerk’s bond page listed both $250,000 court-ordered bonds as open when reviewed Sept. 29.
The docket lists a 30-day return hearing for Oct. 24 and an initial case conference for Nov. 19. The allegations remain pending.
Payment Records Can Matter When a Rental Ledger Is Wrong
The allegations in this case repeatedly turned on documents tenants had retained after their apartment ledgers showed money as unpaid or credited somewhere else.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau recommends keeping dated proof of payments when disputing inaccurate rental information. Supporting documents can be important when a report incorrectly shows rent or another housing debt as unpaid.
For people who pay with postal money orders, USPS advises customers to complete the money order and keep the receipt, which can be used to track the payment. Postal regulations also state that the purchaser should fill in the names and addresses of both the payee and purchaser rather than leaving those fields blank.