MONROE COUNTY, Pa. — Detectives in Monroe County believe a real estate broker accused of theft may have more victims.
Michael Baxter, 63, is already facing close to two dozen felony charges for allegedly stealing tens of thousands of dollars from clients.
If you've ever bought property, you know the lengthy and costly process you have to go through before ever getting the keys in your hands. Detectives say many of the alleged victims were going through that process, and for one reason or another, their transactions fell through.
But all of the money they put down was never returned.
"You feel bad for someone. They're putting their trust in a company that's going to represent them, that's going to look out for their interests, and then to be out that money, you know, that's a lot of money for some people."
Det. Craig VanLouvender from the Monroe County district attorney's office says some people in the Poconos are out tens of thousands of dollars because when they tried to buy property, the real estate broker handling the sale took down payments and kept them for himself.
Michael Baxter, of the now-closed Michael Baxter and Associates, faces felony theft charges.
According to court papers, when a client's transaction fell through, Baxter would not return their down payments, sometimes blaming it on his company's computers getting hacked.
His company, which used to be in an office on Main Street in Stroudsburg, also ran a property management company.
The Monroe County DA's office says some of the alleged victims are landlords who hired Baxter to collect rents then never received them.
Det. VanLouvender believes there may be more victims out there.
"We'd like to get everybody heard that wants to be heard so that we can move this forward and not, someone finds out later on that, 'Oh, I didn't know about this. I would've liked to have been heard.' So that we can get everything together and that the case doesn't drag on forever and that people can get their money back or we can get justice for them, that we get it taken care of at this point."
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