American podcaster and author who assisted UK authorities. convicted A woman derisively dubbed the “Scam Queen” for defrauding a group of mortgage advice clients in Northern Ireland expressed disappointment after being sentenced to just four years in prison on Friday.
“She deceives, or tries to deceive, everyone she meets, and she will never change,” Jonathan Walton said in a statement after Marianne “Mayor” Smith's sentencing closed the books on the transatlantic case against her.
Walton described his own victimhood at the hands of Smith in both the podcast “Con Queen: The Irish Heiress” and in a recently published book called “Anatomy of a Con Man: 14 Red Flags for Identifying Fraudsters, Fraudsters and Thieves.” His reporting in both projects led to the discovery of her whereabouts in Bingham, Maine, in February 2024, leading to a conviction on September 5 in Downpatrick, Northern Ireland.
American-born Smith was found guilty of defrauding four people for whom she worked as a mortgage adviser between 2008 and 2010 of more than $155,000 (£115,000). However, that was only a small part of the story, which included one episode in which she tried to impersonate actor Jennifer Aniston in order to defraud a producer out of millions of dollars, as Walton documented. And he was frustrated that the court in Downpatrick was legally unable to weigh up any of this as Smith was prosecuted and then sentenced on Friday.
“This woman deserves to live out the rest of her days in custody – away from the public eye and away from the possibility of deceiving anyone again,” Walton said in a statement. “I know that's not how things work when it comes to the legal system. But that's how they should work when it comes to dealing with a serial con artist like… Smith.”
One of Smith's victims in Northern Ireland testified during a four-day trial that he gave her £72,570 for a house he rented out to finance his children's college education, but she never bought the property, Britain's Times newspaper reported. reported.
Three other victims, including a couple, reportedly testified that they gave Smith £43,000 to put into investment accounts they never invested.
After she was reported to authorities and they came to arrest her, Smith allegedly killed more than a dozen dogs that lived with her and fled. Northern Ireland for Los Angeles.
She befriended Walton in Los Angeles while he was pursuing a career as a reality TV producer and convinced him that she was a wealthy Irish heiress in a legal dispute with her family. Walton gave Smith almost $100,000 that she claimed she needed to receive an inheritance, but she instead used most of those funds by pleading guilty in 2016 to charges of theft from a travel agency where she once worked.
Eventually, Walton studied Smith's background. He said he learned she had founded a satanic church to financially prey on people who were unlikely to report her to the police, as well as to raise money for bogus cancer treatments. And, among other things, he described how she posed as Aniston, of “Friends” and “The Morning Show” fame, in text messages and emails to try to convince a producer to hand her millions for a non-existent business deal.
Walton eventually convinced Los Angeles authorities to charge her. She was convicted of grand theft under false pretenses but served less than two years in prison as California officials sought to minimize the state's prison population amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
In 2021, Walton released Con Queen: The Irish Heiress, detailing what he and the people of Northern Ireland endured because of Smith. A listener alerted Walton to where Smith resides in Maine. Walton then alerted police to Smith's whereabouts and they arrested her on February 23, 2024, in connection with charges in Northern Ireland that were still pending.
Smith, 56, was flew to the UK from the US by early July 2024, leading to her conviction in court.
In a statement, Mark Anderson, detective constable of Northern Ireland Police, said Friday's sentence “should send a clear message to those who defraud hard-working people that they will be vigorously pursued and brought to justice to face the consequences of their actions, no matter how long it takes.”
But Walton separately called the length of Smith's punishment “disappointing,” saying he fears many people don't have a “full and accurate understanding of who exactly it is.” [she] in fact it is, and what devastation it can cause on innocent, unsuspecting people.”
