Woman accused of befriending disabled Miami-Dade man, stealing his home

by Chris Gothner

MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – An investigation that began nearly five years ago led to the arrest of a woman on grand theft, fraud and exploitation charges after authorities said she befriended an intellectually disabled Miami-Dade man, acted as his caregiver and then stole — and later sold — his home.

Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office deputies took Madeline Lostal-Furst, 56, of Limon, Colorado, into custody at Miami International Airport on Thursday under an arrest warrant.

According to a Sept. 4, 2024 arrest warrant, the 59-year-old victim is “functionally illiterate” and a judge has deemed him “totally incapacitated” due to his intellectual disability.

Lostal-Furst is accused of obtaining a power of attorney over the man and then transferring his home, in the 14500 block of Southwest 291st Street in the unincorporated Leisure City area, to herself using a quit claim deed in 2019. She then sold it to an investor in February 2022 for $190,000, the warrant states.

The victim had inherited the home from his brother in 2014, according to the warrant.

Authorities said the victim’s sister contacted the Florida Department of Children and Families in April 2020 to report that he was being “exploited” and that she believed his “life was in danger.”

The victim’s sister told DCF workers that a woman, later identified as Lostal-Furst, “posed as his girlfriend and moved into his home” a year prior, the warrant states.

The man’s health had “declined significantly” to the point where he had lost weight and was hospitalized more than 20 times, investigators said she told DCF workers.

“It was believed that the girlfriend was poisoning him or messing with his medications,” the warrant states.

According to the warrant, the man’s sister told DCF workers that Lostal-Furst was “trying to place him into a facility” after stealing his home.

In August 2020, the victim’s sister again called the DCF and reported that Lostal-Furst was locking him out of his home and leaving him outside on the porch.

She said earlier that month, Lostal-Furst dropped him off on the streets of Gainesville, where emergency workers found him wandering, authorities said. He was taken to a hospital and held under the Baker Act and then transferred to an assisted living facility in DeLand, where he’s remained, the warrant states.

Investigators later interviewed the southwest Miami-Dade attorney who prepared the quit claim deed, which was signed on Christmas Eve 2019. He said he asked the victim separately “and asked him if this is what he wanted,” the warrant states.

According to the warrant, the attorney told investigators that the man said he “understood” what he was signing and said it was what he wanted. But authorities said the man “could not have known or understood what he was signing.”

By September 2024, Lostal-Furst was believed to be living out-of-state.

Online records indicate that she appeared in Lincoln County, Colorado court on Feb. 14 for an extradition hearing.

Now back in South Florida, Lostal-Furst was being held in the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center on a $45,000 bond, Miami-Dade Corrections and Rehabilitation records show.

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Woman accused of befriending disabled Miami-Dade man, stealing his home