Baldwin woman accused of stealing elderly man’s home deed has been arrested for this before

This isn’t the first time Aurelia Soogea has been accused of stealing a Long Islander’s home out from under them.

The 39-year-old Baldwin woman was arrested last week for allegedly forging documents to transfer the deed of a 75-year-old West Hempstead man’s home on Maple Street into her own name.

Investigators additionally discovered that last month Soogea had been renting out multiple residential properties that she does not own to families across Nassau County, police said.

Soogea pleaded not guilty last week to a bevy of grand larceny charges, as well as a drug charge related to the numerous pills, believed to be oxycodone, police said she was in possession of at the time of her arrest.

The case echoes Soogea’s 2023 arrest in a nearly identical scheme. In that case, Soogea was accused by prosecutors of forging signatures on deed documents belonging to her 78-year-old neighbor in Lakeview, transferring ownership of the woman’s $350,000 home for just $10.

That victim only learned her home no longer belonged to her after receiving a letter from the Nassau County Clerk’s office. Soogea’s attorney said at the time that they intended to contest the charge; how that case was ultimately resolved could not immediately be determined.

Soogea is currently charged with second-degree grand larceny, two counts of third-degree grand larceny, two counts of fourth-degree grand larceny, first-degree offering a false instrument for filing, first-degree scheme to defraud and seventh-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance.

_{Top: Aurelia Soogea, 39, and Nassau County court (Nassau County Police Department and Google Maps Street View)}