'I didn't break any laws,' says Kissimmee commissioner accused of squatting in dead woman's home

KISSIMMEE, Fla. — Kissimmee pro tem Mayor Sara Shaw was booked into the Osceola County Jail on charges of grand theft that allege she used the identification of a dead woman.

She bonded out late Tuesday.

Shaw was adamant that she had done nothing wrong.

"I didn't do anything to deserve to be arrested," she said. "I didn't break any laws."

Shaw and her boyfriend are accused of squatting in Carol Woosley's home. Woosley died in 2011.

Channel 9 found out in May that according to records, the taxes on Woosley's house were paid in cash by Shaw.

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The Florida Department of Law Enforcement began an investigation and Shaw was arrested Tuesday.

Peter Sendtko, who identified himself as Shaw’s boyfriend, told reporter Shannon Butler that Shaw did not live there.

Sendtko told Channel 9 Shaw lived in a downtown Kissimmee apartment.

9 Investigates uncovered that the bills for the utilities they were using were automatically being taken out of Woosley’s account.

Records show $4,600 in utility payments came out of the account belonging to Woosley.

Sendtko was arrested on the same charges and also with dealing in stolen goods.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement said he sold Woosley’s car to a relative for $500.

Someone in another state, who had never met the two, said she got a call from authorities saying that Shaw and Sendtko had moved into her mother’s home.

But the dead woman was still listed on the property appraiser’s website as the owner, and the utility company, KUA, said the utilities were in Woosley’s name.

But in 2014, the adverse possession paperwork was filed by Sendtko, which means in seven years, if nobody fights it, Sendtko would own it.

Kissimmee Mayor Jim Swan said the city has no part in Shaw’s legal issues.

“We don’t have the authority to stick our nose in it, until I have something in front of me, or maybe the governor calls,” Swan said. “I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

Shaw planned to fight the charges while bemoaning the situation in general.

"It's very disturbing to know that I can live my life and abide by the law and still have to go through this," she said.

Cox Media Group