A granddaughter has entered a plea after allegedly draining a Villager’s bank account of more than $100,000.
Jessica Leigh Lewis, 35, entered a plea of not guilty this past week in Lake County Court to a charge of theft from a person over the age of 65. She has been lodged at the Lake County Jail since Feb. 3 as a result of her arrest in the case.
In addition, her bond has been revoked in connection with a charge of aggravated child abuse in a 2018 incident, also at her grandmother’s home in The Villages. Her bond has been revoked because the theft charge is considered a violation of her pre-trial release in the child abuse case.
Lewis had been released from a Florida prison in 2017 after serving time on drug charges as well as a grand theft charge. Her grandmother allowed Lewis to move in with her upon her release from prison.
However, she threw Lewis out after discovering the money missing from her bank account.
Lewis had linked her PayPal account to her grandmother’s bank account. Lewis also used money from the account to pay for phone calls to her boyfriend, 40-year-old Jermaine Harvard of Eustis, who has been held since August at the Marion County Jail on a federal drug charge. Harvard allegedly distributed fentanyl to someone who later died after ingesting it. Lewis also put money, stolen from her grandmother, into Harvard’s commissary account at the jail.