Former Bucks County cop tried to steal elderly woman’s estate in sweetheart scheme, DA says

When an elderly Langhorne woman told police one of her relatives had taken jewelry from her home in 2020, prosecutors said, she had no idea the officer who responded to her call would spend the next four years scheming to steal her money — and even take her home — all while professing to love her.

Carlito Cortez, 59, a former police officer in Yardley and Langhorne, wormed his way into the 76-year-old woman’s life, moving into her home, persuading her to hire his mistress as a live-in aide, and convincing her to give him medical power of attorney, according to court documents filed Wednesday.

He even recruited a former Yardley Borough councilman and lawyer to help him draft documents to make him the beneficiary of the woman’s $500,000 estate, Bucks County District Attorney Jen Schorn said, calling Cortez “very calculated and very charismatic.”

“He took painstaking steps to gain her trust, and after he succeeded in gaining her trust, he used a calculated scheme to defraud the victim that took place over the course of several years,” she said. “The defendant’s actions are the definition of predatory and exploitative.”

And Cortez would have been successful, prosecutors said, had it not been for a concerned neighbor.

Cortez, of Richboro, was charged late Tuesday with theft, perjury, and related crimes. He was released on $150,000 unsecured bail.

His attorney, Thomas Logan, declined to comment except to say that he looks forward to defending his client in court.

Cortez worked as an officer in Yardley from 2013 to 2023, and as a part-time officer in Langhorne from 2016 to 2024, when he resigned after county detectives served a search warrant at his home in connection with the alleged theft.

The investigation into his alleged crimes began in 2023, when the Langhorne woman’s neighbor told police she was concerned that Cortez was taking advantage of the elderly woman after she noticed that he was spending hours — and sometimes staying overnight — at the woman’s home, according to the affidavit of probable cause for his arrest.

After meeting the woman while investigating a reported jewelry theft at her home in 2020, Cortez visited her with increasing frequency over the next few years, the affidavit said. He told the woman he loved her, she later told police, but “only when she did things for him.”

Cortez, who also previously worked as a handyman at an apartment complex in Warminster, performed minor work around the woman’s home, including unclogging a drain and fixing her heater, authorities said. But the woman later complained to her neighbor that Cortez was leaving more complicated work unfinished, the affidavit said.

Eventually, Cortez began storing his belongings in the woman’s home, including his police uniform, and spending nights there, the affidavit said. It seemed he intended to move in, investigators said.

By 2022, Cortez had convinced the woman, against her protests, that she needed a live-in aide, the affidavit said. He recommended she hire a woman who police later learned was not licensed to serve as a home care aide and was in an extramarital relationship with Cortez, and had the victim pay her $3,000, according to the affidavit.

That would-be aide later testified before a grand jury that when Cortez recruited her for his scheme, he told her the victim was “loaded,” according to court filings.

Around that time, investigators said, Cortez persuaded the woman to give him medical power of attorney. And when he had her sign legal paperwork, she said, she realized that the documents before her also included financial power or attorney and a will, something she told police they had not discussed.

While serving the search warrant on Cortez’s home in 2024, detectives found copies of the woman’s original will, as well as a revised version she had signed at Cortez’s behest, authorities said. She told police she had never given Cortez permission to take those documents.

Cortez later told the grand jury that the woman had given him the documents, an explanation that the panel said “flies against the face of testimony” from the victim and others involved in the case, according to the affidavit.

Cortez is scheduled to appear before a district judge for a preliminary hearing on May 28.