US podcaster who helped convict ‘Queen of the Con’ disappointed at short sentence | US crime
A US podcaster and author who helped UK authorities convict a woman derisively known as the “Queen of Scams” for defrauding a group of Northern Irish mortgage advice clients expressed disappointment on Friday that she was sentenced to just four years in prison.
“She defrauds, or tries to defraud, everyone she meets, and that will never change,” Johnathan Walton said in a statement after Marianne “Mair” Smyth’s sentencing closed the accounts on a transatlantic case against her.
Walton has described her victimization at the hands of Smyth both on the podcast Queen of the Con: The Irish Heiress and in her recently published book Anatomy of a Con Artist: The 14 Red Flags to Spot Scammers, Hustlers and Thieves. His reports, revealed in both projects, triggered a clue to his whereabouts in Bingham, Maine, in February 2024, which led to a guilty verdict on September 5 in Downpatrick, Northern Ireland.
American-born Smyth was convicted of defrauding more than $155,000 (£115,000) from four people for whom he worked as a mortgage adviser between 2008 and 2010. But that was only a small part of the story, which, as Walton documented, included an episode in which the actor tried to defraud a producer of millions of dollars by impersonating Jennifer Aniston. And he was disappointed that the court in Downpatrick could not legally weigh any of this as Smyth was tried and subsequently sentenced on Friday.
“This is a woman who deserves to live out the rest of her days in prison, away from society and away from the opportunity to defraud anyone again,” Walton’s statement said. “I know it doesn’t work that way as far as the legal system is concerned. But… from the standpoint of a reckless con woman like Smyth, it sure should be that way.”
One of Smyth’s victims in Northern Ireland testified during a four-day trial that Smyth gave her £72,570 for a rented house to fund her children’s university education – but, as the UK’s Times newspaper noted, Smyth never bought the property. reported.
Three other victims, including a couple, reportedly testified that they gave Smyth £43,000 to put into investment accounts where no investment had been made.
After he was reported to authorities and they moved to arrest him, Smyth allegedly killed more than a dozen dogs living with him and fled Northern Ireland to Los Angeles.
Walton befriended him in Los Angeles while pursuing a career as a reality television producer and convinced him that he was a wealthy Irish heiress who had been involved in a legal dispute with his family. Walton He gave Smyth approximately $100,000, which he claimed he should inherit; but instead used most of those funds, setting aside a 2016 criminal complaint that he had stolen from a travel agency that once employed him.
Eventually, Walton dug into Smyth’s past. He said he learned that he had set up a satanic church to financially prey on people who were unlikely to report him to the police and to raise money for fake cancer treatments. And, among other things, he described how he impersonated Aniston, of Friends and The Morning Show fame, via text and email to try to persuade a producer to give him millions for a non-existent business deal.
Walton eventually convinced Los Angeles authorities to indict him. He was convicted of grand larceny under false pretense but spent less than two years in prison as California officials tried to minimize the state’s incarcerated population during the Covid-19 pandemic.
In 2021, Walton published Queen of the Con: The Irish Heiress, which details what she and those in Northern Ireland suffered because of Smyth. A listener alerted Walton to where Smyth was residing in Maine. Walton later told police Smyth’s whereabouts and they arrested him on February 23, 2024, in connection with charges still pending in Northern Ireland.
Smyth, 56, flew from the US to the UK in early July 2024, which led to his conviction at trial.
Northern Ireland police detective Mark Anderson said in a statement that Friday’s sentence “should send a clear message to those involved in defrauding hard-working people that they will be pursued closely and brought to court to face the consequences of their actions, no matter how long it takes.”
But Walton also described the length of Smyth’s sentence as “disappointing” and said he feared many people lacked a “full and accurate picture of who he was”. [she] “It really is, and the devastation it can wreak on innocent, unsuspecting people.”
