A Deerfield Beach woman who was arrested last week is accused of taking money and personal information from multiple elderly victims, including two people who suffer from dementia and a blind woman, records show.
Jamisha Shamari Sylvain, 26, represented herself as a caregiver or nurse to numerous elderly people ranging in age from 72 to 91, allowing her to gain access to their apartments and personal information, according to multiple probable cause affidavits.
One woman, a 78-year-old who suffers from dementia, met Sylvain through a neighbor at her apartment complex in Deerfield Beach, according to a probable cause affidavit in one of the five cases filed against Sylvain in December. Sylvain had taken the woman to a Chase Bank branch on three separate occasions in November 2025 and withdrew a total of $1,718 while pretending to be the woman’s granddaughter, the affidavit said.
The woman’s son reported the fraud to deputies a few days later. When detectives interviewed the woman, she said she remembered going to the bank with Sylvain but couldn’t remember why she went there or if she lost any money, the affidavit said.
Sylvain similarly made ATM withdrawals from another person’s bank account in October after gaining access to their apartment in a senior living complex, according to an arrest warrant. She accessed the apartment of the alleged victim, a 72-year-old with dementia, by pretending to be a nurse and took his or her Bank of America debit card. Sylvain then made four withdrawals totaling $1,620, the warrant says.
In September, Sylvain approached a blind woman who she saw holding mail outside of her apartment in the B’nai B’rith senior living complex in Deerfield Beach and asked if she needed help reading it, the affidavit said. The woman hesitated at first but then let Sylvain into her apartment.
While reading the woman’s mail, Sylvain asked for her Social Security number, “as if the mail
was requiring it,” and said the woman’s debit card needed to be canceled, the affidavit said. Sylvain went back to the woman’s apartment another day and went with her to TD Bank, where they disposed of the card and ordered a new one, records show.
Shortly afterward, the woman received a letter from Capitol One that said a credit card had been issued to her; she said she had never applied for one. Someone also tried to open a cellphone account with her information. Sylvain was the only person the woman had recently given her personal information to, the affidavit said.
Another alleged victim was a 91-year-old woman who told deputies Sylvain had approached her on a bus in October and purported to be a caregiver assigned to her through her insurance, a separate probable cause affidavit said. Sylvain went to the woman’s apartment the next day and spent several hours there pretending to be an insurance-assigned aide, despite the woman never having heard from her insurance, the affidavit said.
The woman noticed after Sylvain left her apartment that her Capitol One debit card was missing. She called Sylvain and told her to return the card, and she denied taking it. She returned to the woman’s apartment later that day and said she found the missing card, according to the affidavit.
In two other separate incidents, Sylvain entered the apartments of an 85-year-old man and an 84-year-old woman and asked them for their driver’s licenses and debit card information, according to probable cause affidavits. The man thought she was a social worker or a family member, the affidavit said, and Sylvain tried to use his information to take $1,000 from his account.
Among the charges she faces are burglary of an occupied dwelling, criminal use of personal identifying information, elderly financial exploitation and grand theft from a person 65 years or older. She remained in the Paul Rein Detention Facility as of Friday.
