American Airlines flight attendant arrested at MIA, accused of $25,000 sweepstakes scam targeting Palm Coast senior

An American Airlines flight attendant from Brooklyn, New York, was arrested at Miami International Airport on Flagler County warrants, accused of taking roughly $25,310 from a 75-year-old Palm Coast woman through a fake sweepstakes scheme, according to the Flagler County Sheriff's Office. Investigators say she used her airline travel benefits to fly to Florida and visit the woman's home.

Destiny Blake, 24, was taken into custody late Friday, Oct. 23, by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers after she arrived at MIA on an international flight, the sheriff's office said. She is presumed innocent unless proven guilty in court.

The charges

Flagler County Sheriff's Office detectives obtained a warrant for Blake's arrest on Oct. 13 after an investigation into the financial exploitation of the Palm Coast woman. According to the sheriff's office, she faces three charges:

• Organized scheme to defraud of more than $20,000 from a victim 65 or older
• Fraudulent use of personal identification information of a person 60 or older
• Grand theft of more than $20,000

Blake was booked into the Miami-Dade County jail and later released on a $30,000 bond, according to WPLG Local 10 and FOX 13. She faces extradition to Flagler County, where the case will be prosecuted.

The reports did not include a response from American Airlines or from an attorney for Blake.

How investigators say the scheme began

According to investigators, the scheme started in November 2025, when the victim got a phone call from someone claiming to represent Publishers Clearing House. The caller told her she had won a sweepstakes prize but needed to mail a $500 gift card to a person named Destiny Blake at a Brooklyn address before she could collect her winnings. The woman did as she was told, the sheriff's office said.

Around the same time, the woman found she could no longer get into her email account. Investigators said the password had been changed and the account had been altered to look like a different address, one she had never created. Officials have not said how the account was changed or how the caller first found the victim.

Between Nov. 15 and Nov. 19, 2025, the woman withdrew more than $14,000 from her bank account, authorities said. Detectives determined that Blake received $14,220 through cash and Zelle payments.

A standby flight to Daytona Beach

Investigators said Blake used her American Airlines employee travel privileges to fly from New York to Daytona Beach on Nov. 18, 2025, as a standby passenger. After she landed, she took an Uber to a hotel along State Road 100 in Palm Coast, according to detectives.

The next morning, an Uber dropped Blake off at the victim's home shortly before 11 a.m., detectives said. About 15 minutes later, another Uber picked her up and drove her back to Daytona Beach International Airport. Purchases were then made on the victim's credit card at airports in Daytona Beach and Charlotte, North Carolina, before Blake returned home, according to the sheriff's office.

The credit card charges

Detectives found that Blake had been added to the victim's Apple Card account as an authorized user and had been issued a card of her own. A family member later found a handwritten note inside the victim's home telling her to tell the credit card company that Blake was her granddaughter and had permission to use the account, authorities said.

According to the sheriff's office, 88 transactions totaling $10,590.30 were charged to the victim's credit cards between Nov. 16 and Dec. 11, 2025. Investigators described these purchases among them:

Detectives said the online orders were placed using Blake's name, email address and phone number. Investigators also obtained surveillance video that they say shows Blake using the victim's credit card at a supermarket in Queens, New York, and cellphone location records placed her phone near businesses where some of the transactions happened, according to the sheriff's office.

In all, detectives estimated the woman lost about $25,310: the $14,220 in cash and Zelle payments, plus the credit card charges.

What the sheriff said

Flagler County Sheriff Rick Staly said in a statement that most flight attendants use their benefits to see the world, but that Blake, as he described it, used hers to further a scam against a senior resident. Staly said detectives, with help from federal officers, "clipped" her wings, and that her next trip would be to Flagler County to face the charges.

Why it matters for Florida families

The case shows how a scam that starts with a phone call can expand into an email takeover and the addition of an authorized user to a credit card account, which can let charges pile up for weeks before a family notices. In this case, the sheriff's office said, it was a relative who found the handwritten note in the woman's home.

The Flagler County Sheriff's Office is urging families to take steps to protect older relatives from financial scams and unauthorized access to their accounts. The agency has posted guidance on securing phones, email accounts, computers and banking information at flaglersheriff.com/senior-safety.

Legitimate sweepstakes do not require winners to pay a fee or send a gift card to claim a prize, a point consumer protection agencies repeat often.

What's next

Blake is expected to be extradited to Flagler County to answer the charges in state court there. The sheriff's office asks anyone who believes they were targeted in a similar scam, or who had financial dealings with Blake, to call the Flagler County Sheriff's Office at 386-313-4911.

Suspected financial exploitation of an older adult can be reported to the Florida Abuse Hotline at 1-800-962-2873 or to the U.S. Department of Justice National Elder Fraud Hotline at 1-833-372-8311.