MACON, Ga. — When you think of theft, you likely think of someone stealing jewelry, cash or something easy to put in a pocket and walk away with.
But in Macon, an Atlanta woman is accused of stealing five separate pieces of land – including a Central Georgia family's second home.
The woman authorities believe was responsible, Angela Spradley, was arrested on Tuesday, nearly two months after she was indicted in Bibb Superior Court on 32 different charges.
It's part of a scheme that prosecutors say involves forged and fraudulent documents and thousands of dollars worth of stolen land.
'My home has been acquired fraudulently'
When the property owner's husband arrived at their second home back in 2022, he found the house boarded up, a stove and construction materials missing and a realtor’s box set up in front of the property, according to an incident report from the Bibb County Sheriff’s Office.
That was not the case, she said, when they last visited the property.
But quickly their surprise likely became astonishment when she arrived at the county courthouse. Records show the house had been “gifted” to an Atlanta woman, Angela Spradley, and then sold to another company for $7,500, the incident report says.
“I do not know any of these individuals and nor have I ever intended to sell or gift this property to anyone,” the property owner said in the incident report.
In other words – on paper – the property wasn’t even theirs anymore.
“My home has been acquired fraudulently,” she said
But according to an indictment filed in Bibb Superior Court in February, the scheme Spradley is accused of concocting appears to have been used against other landowners, too. Now, she’s been charged with 32 different crimes.
The orchestration
The indictment outlines the alleged scheme.
They believe Spradley stole the identity of a person who owned a property; forged their signature; filed a false deed; made false statements and, ultimately, transferred ownership to her name thus stealing the property.
In total, the 18-page indictment accuses Spradley of stealing from the family and four others, and the case involved five separate Macon properties. Altogether, those five properties are worth nearly $90,000, according to records from the Bibb County Tax Accessors Office.
When the property owner reviewed the deeds for her second home, she noticed that a signature on the deed was not hers, the incident report read. It then says a deputy clerk reviewed the document and “verified the signature was not mine and was fraudulent.”
All five properties were deeded from the original owner and over to Spradley between November 2021 and June 2022
But even today, the records do not show the Central Georgia family as the owner of the property. It still, on paper, belongs to the company Spradley is accused of selling the property to.
The same goes for the other properties. Each of the properties with owners listed in the indictment are still not in the hands of the original owners.
Some are houses, others are empty lots.
One other property was sold for $7,500 to the same company Spradley allegedly sold the Central Georgia family's second home to, property records show.
Now, the indictment charges Spradley with multiple counts of forgery, identity theft, theft by deception, filing false documents and making false statements. It is unclear when the case will go to trial or how long she could spend in prison if convicted.
Spradley was arrested back in December 2023, the incident report shows, but it appears she was later released. On Tuesday, Spradley was booked into the Bibb County Jail again where records show she currently does not have bond.