SYDNEY, N.S. — Two Sydney residents are facing a combined total of 33 charges connected to six different incidents of fraud involving the sale and renting of property.
Mac Kirk Burton, 42, and Jessica Ellen Strople, 28, are charged with fraud, theft, and breaching previous court-ordered conditions. The charges result from an investigation into reported incidents of individuals paying money for property that they never received, between December 2018 and May 2019.
Both Burton and Strople appeared in Sydney Provincial Court Wednesday and were remanded to the Cape Breton Correctional Centre pending bail hearings Friday.
Cape Breton Regional Police first received a complaint in June from an out-of-province resident who had sent payments to an individual here for the purchase of a boat that the seller did then not provide. While investigating that incident, police received five more complaints through July from citizens who had provided deposits to the same individual for future lease of a rental property that he claimed was being built. After their money was taken, the citizens repeatedly faced delays in contact with the advertised owner and could not confirm the existence of the advertised land or property.
Major crime investigators determined Burton and Strople were the people responsible for stealing money from all the parties, in addition to confirming that none of the advertised property ever existed. They were arrested Tuesday, when Burton was charged for all six incidents and Strople for five.
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