A 67-year-old Hollywood woman recruited her son's former boss, a Fort Lauderdale attorney, to help forge his notarized signature off the deed to his own Cooper City house. Now both women are on probation, and the attorney has lost her law license for a year over the scheme.
Suzanne Corcoran and Ashley Morin, a 30-year-old lawyer from Cooper City, each pleaded no contest in 2025 to felony charges tied to the forged quitclaim deed, according to the Miami Herald. Corcoran pleaded no contest to filing false documents and fraudulent use of personal identification, while Morin pleaded no contest to unlawful filing of false documents against real property and criminal use of personal identification. Both received four years of probation running through June 17, 2029.
The victim was Ryan Shrouder, a Fort Lauderdale attorney who is Corcoran's son and Morin's former boss at the law firm Shrouder, Karns & Mager. Shrouder is also a Cooper City commissioner, according to the City of Cooper City.
How the Scheme Unfolded
Corcoran bought the Cooper City house in 1994 and later added her son as a joint owner with rights of survivorship, per the Herald's reporting. According to the newspaper, Morin and Corcoran met for lunch, after which Morin drove Corcoran around for a series of errands that included stopping at a UPS Store, where Corcoran had a document notarized while Morin waited in the car. Corcoran told Morin she needed a quitclaim deed for property in Tennessee, the Herald reported.
Morin applied for and obtained a library card at the Davie/Cooper City Broward County library branch, then printed a quitclaim deed using a library computer — a document the Herald reports she had actually worked on earlier at Shrouder, Karns & Mager. Corcoran later called another son to pick her up from the library. She then asked Morin to bring original documents to the Broward County Property Appraiser's Office, where Corcoran first tried to record a copied version of the deed before being told the original was required, according to the Herald's account.
The document that eventually got filed was a forgery bearing Shrouder's notarized signature, made using a signature stamp stolen from his office, the Herald reported. The forged deed removed Shrouder as a co-owner and left his mother as the sole owner of the three-bedroom, 2.5-bathroom house, which was built in 1994 and spans 1,794 square feet. Arrest reports attribute the theft of the stamp to Morin, while Corcoran's arrest report attributes the stamp's theft or duplication to her as well, done without Shrouder's permission — an inconsistency in how the two arrest reports assign responsibility for taking the stamp, per the Herald.
A Property Office Catches the Fraud
The scheme unraveled after the May 2023 quitclaim deed was discovered, and a corrective quitclaim deed was filed June 2, 2023. Investigators later traced the original fraud complaint to the Broward County Property Appraiser's Office, which flagged the forged filing before Broward Sheriff's Office detectives got involved, according to Local 10 News. A detective interviewed Morin in February 2024, months before either woman was formally arrested that June.
At the time of her arrest, Morin faced far more serious charges than the ones she ultimately pleaded to, including first-degree grand theft, filing false documents against property, and criminal use of personal identification, held on a $15,000 bond, the station reported. First-degree grand theft in Florida can carry up to 30 years in prison depending on the value of the property involved, though Morin's case ultimately resolved with the lesser no-contest plea and withheld adjudication.
Morin had been employed at Boca Raton litigation firm Shendell & Pollock, P.L. after leaving Shrouder's office; the firm removed her biography from its website on June 11, 2024, immediately after news of her arrest broke, per the same station's report. Corcoran's defense attorney, Scott Saul, said at the time that there were “significant mitigating circumstances” tied to a “sad family feud” over the Cooper City property. Corcoran posted bond and initially pleaded not guilty before later agreeing to the 2025 no-contest plea.
Morin's Own Account and the Bar's Response
In statements captured in the referee's report, Morin admitted to committing the physical acts alleged against her but said she did not know a forged deed was being notarized at the time. She said she accepted responsibility in part because Corcoran manipulated her, adding that lawyers are held to a higher standard and that she should have been more diligent, thorough, and asked more questions.
Referee Judge Paul Anthony D'Amico found that Morin showed remorse and did not act with a dishonest or selfish motive, according to records from The Florida Bar. In the disciplinary case docketed as SC2025-1211, the Florida Supreme Court suspended Morin from practicing law for a full year. Morin has been a member of the Florida Bar since September 2021. Under Rule 3-4.3, an unlawful or dishonest act may constitute cause for discipline; under Rule 3-4.4, a criminal court determination of guilt for a felony offense is cause for automatic suspension.
A Deed Fraud Problem Florida Has Tried to Fix
Certain fraudulent filings in Florida are third-degree felonies.
Florida lawmakers had already tried to close the exact loophole exploited in this case. The state enacted House Bill 1419 in 2023, creating a standardized quitclaim deed form, requiring witness addresses on recorded deeds starting in January 2024, and mandating free electronic fraud notification systems for property owners statewide by July 2024, according to the Florida Senate. The bill passed both legislative chambers unanimously.
The case also lands amid a surge in fraud targeting Florida seniors. FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center data for 2025 showed Florida ranked second nationwide for senior financial fraud losses, with 17,147 victims aged 60 and older reporting losses exceeding $709 million — an 83 percent jump from 2024, Hoodline previously reported. Seniors 65 and older make up roughly 21 percent of Florida's population, creating what researchers describe as a high-volume target environment for schemes like this one.
Shrouder himself previously spoke publicly about municipal financial oversight in connection with a separate Cooper City embezzlement case involving the local Optimist Club.
