PINECREST, Fla. — Police say a Pinecrest handyman “took financial advantage” of a dead senior he had worked for, using her credit card to pay his property taxes. They arrested him on Friday.
Police said Gary Thomas Nolin, 65, befriended the senior and began working for her after meeting her at Wagons West Restaurant, a fixture in Pinecrest that closed in 2023. About a year later, the senior would die at 91, according to multiple online obituaries.
Nolin is “not a relative as he claims to others since the (woman) had no living relatives,” police noted in the report, saying his name was never on the card and he was not authorized to use it.
According to a report from the Pinecrest Police Department, the woman’s Bank of America credit card should have been closed. Instead, last May, more than half a year after the woman’s death, police said Nolin used the card to pay his nearly $9,000 property tax bill.
According to the Miami-Dade Property Appraiser, Nolin’s home in the 7800 block of Southwest 112th Street has a market value of $1.7 million. It’s assessed at $460,994.
Authorities said Nolin had had the credit card statements rerouted to his address from about a year before the woman died.
Police said they had been trying to get in touch with Nolin since November, sending him multiple text messages and showing up at his house, where he refused to answer the door. They said they finally found him outside of his home on Friday and cuffed him.
According to the report, Nolin told detectives that his attorney had told him not to speak with detectives and said the woman “requested a credit card for him for his personal use.”
Police said he told detectives that the senior’s personal representative was the one “taking advantage” of her.
He’s now facing six felony charges, including two counts of identity theft of a deceased person.
Court records show he was released on a $6,000 bond. Despite having a home valued at seven figures, those records show he’s filed for indigent status and is being represented by the Miami-Dade Public Defender’s Office.
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