ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (WFLA) – Johnathan Westley Blue, the man at the center of a Better Call Behnken investigation into stolen houses, is in jail, charged with four felonies in connection with those sales.
The State Attorney’s office charged Blue with scheme to defraud and three charges of “unlawful filing of false documents or records against real or personal property.”
Blue is being held in the Pinellas County Jail. Bond is set at $280,000.
This arrest comes after the State Attorney’s office reopened its investigation into Blue after it was made aware of a Better Call Behnken report about a St. Petersburg man’s fight to get his house back.
That man, Tony Heh, claims he was in Seattle, recovering from a stroke, when strangers filed a fake Quit Claim Deed in Pinellas County Public Official Court Records.
Heh says his name was forged on the deed that shows he sold his house for $0 to Blue, a felon with a history of drug arrests. Heh insists he never met Blue or any of the witnesses listed on the deed.
St. Petersburg police arrested the woman who notarized the deed on Heh’s property, Brittany Varner. In June, she pleaded guilty to five charges of notary fraud. She received two years of probation and must testify in any other cases involving these deals.
The State Attorney’s office said the homeowners, and their families, tell them they don’t know Varner and didn’t sell their houses.
Even so, St. Petersburg police told Heh they had finished their criminal investigation and in order to get Blue out of his house, Heh would have to sue him in civil court.
“They just washed their hands,” Heh said in June.
Blue hired lawyer Benndrick Watson and insists Heh sold him the home.
Watson said in June that the deed that Varner notarized is real, even though it was “sloppy” and listed the sales price as $0.
“The real victim in this case is my client,” he said.
Watson claims Heh paid a total of $18,000 in cash for the home, in two installments, and that Heh just changed his mind and wants the house back.
Heh calls that “ridiculous” and hopes Blue’s arrest gets him one step closer to getting his house back.
Our 8 On Your Side investigation found Blue also bought two other houses for $0.
Varner notarized those deeds, too.
One of those “sellers” was deceased at the time he supposedly signed the deed to sell his home to Blue. That house, public records show, was deeded to Blue’s company, Lifted Real Estate.
