Frostproof woman accused of stealing funds intended for families of triple homicide victims
BARTOW — A Frostproof woman has been arrested on allegations she drained about $11,500 from a charity fund intended to help the families of three men gunned down in a July 19 triple homicide near Frostproof’s Lake Streety.
GoFundMe has stated it will refund the money Amanda Brown is alleged to have taken from the donors, but that’s done little to quell Dottie Payton’s anger.
“How can she stoop so low, to do what she did, and use my name as the person who gave her permission,” said Payton, whose 28-year-old son, Brandon Rollins, was among those killed. “And she used my son’s picture to get what she wanted.”
Brown, 32, of 21 Hibiscus Way, is facing allegations of collecting $11,505 on the premise the money would go to the families of Keven Springfield, Damion Tillman and Rollins.
Instead, she paid the city of Frostproof $1,398 for her water bill, made purchases at stores from Lakeland to Sebring and paid personal bills, according to a Polk County Sheriff’s Office arrest affidavit.
The account was left with a balance of 9 cents, the affidavit states.
Payton said a friend told her about the GoFundMe account in early August, a couple weeks after Rollins and his two longtime friends were gunned down along rural Lake Streety Road as they prepared to go night fishing. Tony “T.J.” Lee Wiggins Jr. of rural Lake Wales has been arrested and charged as the gunman in the killings.
“Once it was set up, we kept watching it,” Payton said Friday, “and when she kept changing names, and even put me in as the organizer, we knew something wasn’t right. I had never talked to her about it, and we had our own funds set up. I knew her name, but I didn’t know her personally.”
The GoFundMe account had been created at 8:22 a.m. July 19, less than two days after the murders, according to the affidavit. During the next two weeks, $11,505 was withdrawn from the account.
Deputies became involved Aug.10, and began piecing together what had transpired, including store surveillance video and bank withdrawals. They met with Brown at the Frostproof substation Wednesday, and she told them she had created the account without authorization, the affidavit states.
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“Amanda Brown stated she intended to give the funds to the families listed on the account, however, once she began receiving the funds, she began spending it for personal use,” the arrest report states.
She’s been arrested on allegations of obtaining property through fraud, grand theft, misrepresenting a solicitation as being a charity, two counts of using another person’s identity without consent and three counts of using the identity of a dead person. She’s being held in the Polk County Jail in lieu of $28,000 bail, jail records show.
Payton said the families of the three men received enough donations to cover each of their funeral expenses, but this matter goes beyond not receiving money from this fund.
“We’re already having to deal with the court system with our kids being murdered,” she said, “and now we have to deal with this woman who took from them. Did she even know my son?”
Payton said she’s thought about those who contributed, thinking they were helping the families.
“It’s been a struggle for us every day, and now this,” she said. “I want her to know that we know what she did, and what she did was wrong.”
Suzie Schottelkotte can be reached at suzie.schottelkotte@theledger.com or 863-533-9070. Follow her on Twitter @southpolkscene.