After Orlando City Commissioner Regina Hill struggled to obtain a home loan, she used a document that bore signs of forgery to leverage an elderly constituent’s superior credit for a government-backed mortgage, investigative records show.
That document bears the name of a politically connected notary who is a friend and former campaign field director for Hill, according to documents and interviews recently released to the Orlando Sentinel from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigation.
Several irregularities mar the legal document, a power of attorney declaration that gave Hill authority to purchase the home on the shore of west Orlando’s Lake Mann in her own name and in the name of the elderly woman. Yet Hill was allowed to proceed with the purchase of the Domino Drive property in August 2022.
Robert Sinclair, the real estate agent who handled the transaction, told FDLE agents he thought Hill’s position as an elected official made people involved in the real estate transaction feel “like she could ruin them if she wanted to.”
“Lenders, contractors, I mean everybody connected with this, myself included, were nervous,” Sinclair told investigators last year, according to the FDLE report. “I don’t have any proof, I know she is capable of it, I mean, she is a city commissioner for God’s sakes, so anybody doing business around here was possibly a little nervous.”
Hill has since been accused of exploiting the now 96-year-old woman whose name appears on the mortgage and property deed alongside hers. The woman, who suffers from memory loss, did not appear to understand her own involvement in the deal, the FDLE says.
The two first met in early 2021 after city enforcement officers reported “deplorable” conditions at the elderly woman’s residence. Hill worked to clean up the home, but a former Hill aide later alerted authorities of her suspicions that Hill had begun to take advantage of the woman. After an FDLE investigation that spanned more than a year, Hill was indicted on several felony counts related to elder abuse in late March and subsequently suspended from her city council seat. In addition to obtaining a fraudulent power of attorney to purchase the Domino Drive property, Hill was accused of seizing control of the elderly woman’s finances and draining her accounts of about $100,000.
Hill has pleaded not guilty and publicly maintained her innocence.
Sinclair described Hill’s struggle to obtain a loan as “misery, very, very difficult,” according to a recently released summary of his interview with FDLE investigators.
“She had problems getting qualified right up to the very end,” he said.
Hill likely would not have been able to obtain the loan on her own because her credit score was too low, an attorney for the title company that handled the transaction told investigators. In fact, Hill had previously tried, unsuccessfully, to qualify for a loan to purchase the property, Alan Sandler of Near North Title Group in Altamonte Springs said. Sandler told investigators he believed Hill added the elderly woman’s name as a co-signer to the application in an attempt to improve her chances. The elderly woman’s credit score was more than 100 points higher than Hill’s, FDLE agents noted.
Hill eventually received a loan of $428,000, well over the home’s selling price of $295,000. Sandler said the loan was greater than the home’s appraised value to cover necessary property improvements.
The home on Domino Drive previously was owned by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, and Hill had to go through a bidding process before she was selected to purchase the home, Sinclair told investigators. He said he was surprised by how much time Hill was allowed to secure a loan, telling FDLE officers he believed she had used her political influence and contacted a “higher-up” executive at the agency in Washington, D.C., and that she was given an extension, which he said he had never seen the department grant to anyone else.
The federal agency is also investigating the purchase of the home, according to the FDLE reports, but a department spokesman would not confirm the existence or status of the probe.
The power-of-attorney document that enabled Hill to purchase the home contained several irregularities, including a witness signature that appears whited out, with the name of Omari Nembhard, Hill’s son, signed on top. But Nembhard’s name is misspelled as “Nembard” and he told investigators in a brief interview he never signed the document, before declining to answer other questions. The other witness, Jacqueline Cockerham, the former Hill aide who first alerted the FDLE, said she didn’t sign the document, either.
Two different dates also appear within a few lines of each other on the record.
Sandra Lewis, the notary whose name appears on the document, told investigators that the signature that appears on the document is hers, but she did not notarize the document. However, she said some of the other handwriting on the document does not look like her penmanship. FDLE officers described the record as “fraudulent,” according to their report on the investigation. Lewis also told investigators during the February 2023 interview she had received a letter from the Office of the Governor’s Notary Section indicating it was looking into the matter.
Lewis said she had notarized documents for Hill in the past, but couldn’t remember when or what the records were for. The Orlando Sentinel couldn’t reach her for comment.
Investigators interviewed Lewis at the office of her employer, Democratic Rep. Bruce Antone of Orlando, records show. Lewis has been active in Central Florida politics for several years, working extensively for Hill during her 2017 and 2021 campaigns, records show. Hill paid more than $38,000 to Lewis or entities closely connected to her during those two election cycles for her work as a field director, canvasser and consultant.
Lewis also has worked on the campaigns of other city commission candidates, records show.
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