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Article Courtesy of
The Treasure Coast Newspaper
By Melissa E. Holsman
Published August 18, 2026
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Stuart man charged last year with stealing more than $800,000 from two Palm City
homeowners associations turned down a state offer to serve 20 years in prison
after he pleaded no contest to grand theft charges, according to court records
and a prosecutor.
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Instead, Scott Michael Brechbill, 42, of
the 400 block of Southeast Fini Drive in Stuart, left his
punishment up to a judge on Aug. 6, who ordered him behind
bars for 15 years, followed by 10 years of probation upon
his release, court filings show.
Brechbill, the former property manager and owner of C & M
Property Management, was arrested last year after Martin
County Sheriff's Office investigators met with members of
the homeowner's associations of Quail Meadow and Starling
Court in the Martin Downs Country Club about money
mismanagement claims dating to 2018, records show.
“He was essentially using the bank accounts of the HOAs as
his own personal funds,” said Assistant State Attorney
Kimberly Cortez, who prosecuted Brechbill.
When Brechbill faced Circuit Judge Elizabeth Metzger for
sentencing after being found guilty of first-degree grand
theft over $100,000, and second-degree grand theft less than
$100,000, he issued an apology in court, Cortez said.
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Scott Michael Brechbill
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“He did say that he was sorry,” she said. “His statement was something along the
lines of he didn't realize the harm that he'd caused to these victims.”
Several residents of the two communities he stole from addressed the court, too,
Cortez said.
In resolving the charges against Brechbill, the state dropped two felonies:
organized scheme to defraud and obtaining property less than $50,000, records
show.
Metzger on Aug. 6 ordered Brechbill be taken into custody; he had been free in
lieu of a $2.1 million bond following his arrest on July 1, 2025.
HOA investigations
On June 26, 2023, a Martin County sheriff's corporal met with a member of the
homeowner's association of Starling Court who reported they had recently hired a
new property management company and while reviewing records, discovered
discrepancies in the community's banking accounts while under the management of
C & M Property Management LLC, a complaint affidavit shows.
The man reported that it seemed large amounts of money were being deposited into
C & M Property's bank account from Starling Court's bank account. A detective
assigned to the case was given multiple bank account statements showing large
transfers between Starling Court and C & M Property Management.
The member who reported the issue stated he believed Brechbill was using his
management company to transfer money from the HOA's bank account into his
personal account, according to court filings.
In July 2023, a detective reviewing copies of Starling Court's bank statements
with Truist Bank found large transfers and asked the bank where the funds were
being sent to, but court filings show the bank could not find any record in
their system of the account the detective was looking for.
In January 2024, investigators talked to Brechbill's father who said Scott
Brechbill owned and operated C & M Property Management, and his name was also on
the business, but his son ran the day-to-day operations, according to the
complaint affidavit.
The detective then spoke with Scott Brechbill over the phone who said he no
longer operated C & M, but while he did, he used a third-party company, Appfolio,
to streamline payments to and from the HOAs. He stated he no longer had access
to the HOA's records, but he was aware of the complaints from the board members.
The detective asked Brechbill about the large transfers, and he said because of
Appfolio, the payments looked like they were being sent to C & M, but they were
being directly sent to the venders, such as lawn maintenance. The detective then
requested a subpoena for Appfolio to get the records for all of the communities
that C & M managed.
Criminal probe expands
On March 8, 2024, the detective was assigned another case for an investigation
involving Brechbill transferring large amounts of money from another HOA within
the Martin Downs Country Club community. A Signature Property Management
official told the detective they’d recently acquired the Quail Meadow community,
previously managed by Brechbill.
Brechbill, the detective was told, did not turn over any paperwork despite
multiple requests, but when bank statements from Seacoast Bank for Quail
Meadow's bank records were reviewed, officials found “hundreds of thousands of
dollars” had been transferred to Brechbill and C & M Property Management,
according to the complaint affidavit.
On May 17, 2024, Appfolio provided the sheriff’s detective with spreadsheets for
every community managed by C & M Property Management. The detective began going
through years of bank statements and all documents from Appfolio.
The dates of the statements for Starling Court were between April 2018 and
January 2023 and the statements for Quail Meadow were between April 2018 and
July 2023. Brechbill transferred $820,777.51 from Quail Meadow HOA's bank
account to C & M Property Management's bank account, which was used as his
personal account, the detective reported.
And C & M Property Management bank records showed "the account is used both as a
business and personal account, comingling the profits from C & M Property
Management with personal use." |
