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- Blake Floyd Cozzens, a Cedar City property manager, is accused of mismanaging over $1.9 million.
- Police are requesting Cozzens be held without bail, saying he posses a public safety risk.
CEDAR CITY — A 35-year-old property manager was arrested Wednesday, accused of siphoning over $1.9 million from clients' accounts.
Blake Floyd Cozzens was reported to the Cedar City Police Department in December when the lawyer of a client "had suspicions that the property manager for the victim entity had unlawfully taken funds from an account," according to an initial police booking affidavit.
Cozzens is a licensed realtor and real estate broker, his LinkedIn profile says, and owns Stress Free Property Management, where he manages "a variety of townhouses, apartments, student housing, HOAs, houses and duplexes."
An investigative subpoena was sent to the State Bank of Southern Utah for bank records, and showed two accounts where Cozzens was the only signer, the affidavit said.
"Both accounts showed multiple transactions ranging from hundreds to hundreds of thousands of dollars that the complainant states were not authorized by the victim entity or its governing body," according to the affidavit.
In total, more than 19 transactions over $5,000, totaling over $1.9 million, were found in the form of checks, wire transfers and in-person withdrawals, investigators claim. Many of those transactions were allegedly sent to an account controlled only by Cozzens, and show withdraws from the many "after many large transfers from the victim's accounts," the affidavit says.
These transactions are said to have occurred from March 2023 to November 2024. Both bank accounts in question are empty, as of November, police say.
Cozzens was arrested Wednesday and booked into the Iron County Jail under investigation of 10 charges of unlawful fiduciary dealing with values over $5,000, a second-degree felony. No charges have been filed yet.
Police are requesting the man be held without bail, saying he "caused multiple members of the public to fear for their lives and those of their families if he is released, to the point they want to leave town," according to the affidavit.
Cozzens, the former treasurer and chairman of the Iron County Republican Party, was one of five men arrested and charged in a 2018 St. George prostitution sting. He resigned from his unpaid post, pleaded guilty to one count of patronizing a prostitute, a misdemeanor, and was sentenced to 12 months of probation and a fine of $1,000.
